News · Panerai
Panerai's Submersible Navy SEALs PAM01738 is a 44mm 500m steel diver at US$12,400
Panerai's own product page puts the small seconds at three and lists no date at all, which is not what a lot of the coverage says.
Hen & Mills Editorial · 2 min read · 7 August 2026
A lot of this week's coverage of the Submersible Navy SEALs PAM01738 has the dial the wrong way round, with a date window at three and small seconds at nine. Panerai's product page says small seconds at three, and no date is listed anywhere on it. When the brand and the write-ups disagree, the brand wins.
The watch under the confusion is a 44mm steel diver, not limited, at US$12,400 before sales tax. It sits in the Navy SEALs line next to the Afniotech Experience PAM01089.
A shooting target at three, in Special Warfare yellow
The dial is anthracite, and the small seconds counter at three is drawn up like a shooting target. Its hand is yellow, taken from the colour of the official Special Warfare insignia. There's a Navy SEALs decal at six and an engraving on the caseback. Theme delivered.
The change that will actually matter in the water is duller and better. Panerai has made the applied indexes 20 percent wider and grown the Green Super-LumiNova X2 surface by 45 percent. Those numbers are pointed at a real problem, which is reading a watch at depth once the light has gone.
Fifty bar, and three days out of one barrel
Water resistance is 50 bar, so about 500 metres, and Panerai says it is tested at plus 25 percent, which puts it nearer 625. The unidirectional bezel runs on a black matt ceramic disc, the crown tucks under the usual protecting bridge, and the whole thing weighs 150 grams.
Inside is the in-house P.980: automatic, stop seconds, transversal balance bridge, three days of reserve from a single barrel. That last part deserves credit. Plenty of movements reach three days by stacking two barrels, which is the easier route and costs you parts and height.
Two straps come in the box, an accordion rubber for diving and a military grey canvas, plus an anthracite textile in 24/22mm. Register the watch and the warranty stretches to eight years.
US$12,400, and whether your wrist wants 44mm
That is Panerai money, and it always has been. What it buys is a serious diver with a serious movement, which is not a given for everything wearing a rotating bezel at this price.
The 44mm case decides this one for a lot of wrists before anything else gets a look in. If it fits, the legibility work is what you'll still be glad of on the hundredth wearing. If it doesn't, no amount of good engineering will talk your wrist round.
On the spec sheet alone I'd like it here. Panerai has quoted this one in US dollars, and there's no Australian price yet.
