Dirk a German Navy EOD Technician (Masterchief). His passion are watches. The result is BOMBFROG. He offers small charges of tactical and reliable watches for every mission. We talked to Dirk Assmann about BOMBFROG.
SPARTANAT: Dirk you are an active duty Navy EOD soldier, in civil life BOMBFROG. How did you started making military watches?
Dirk Assmann: I am an Navy EOD Technician since 21 years now and before I joined the Navy I was a big fan of pratical watches. After I finished dive school I got a IWC Porsche Design issued. A watch I had to use. Technically a complete desaster. It looked pretty, but keeping the time was not possible. As a dive supervisor I am responsible for my men. If my watch or I fail during dive operations or demolition, dead will be around. I needed an accurate watch and started making my own. This lead us to our brand.
SPARTANAT: What is characteristic for a good watch?
Dirk Assmann: You need to make a difference. Watches for land based operations need different functions than watches for dive operations. The perfect watch on the ground is a digital watch with a lot of useful tools. As a survival specialist you learn a lot at that school, but being country side as an civilian guy, you would love to have a compass, altimeter, count down or stopp watch function. At dive operations you don´t need all of that. You need a watch with a clean face and good lighting. You need to rely on the accuracy even in dark water
SPARTANAT: What models does BOMBFROG offer? What is your target group of customers?
Dirk Assmann: We get new watch models from year to year. We are very proud of that fact that we still grow, even that we are a small family operated business. You can view all our watches on our website. This year we made our first digital watch (DW-15). The response on that watch is awesome. Our target group service men and women who work in the Law and enforcement, Security or military branch. We also focus on outdoor and dive addicted people, who are looking for an affordable reliable watch.
SPARTANAT: You customize your watches. Who is wearing BOMBFROG watches?
Dirk Assmann: We personalize watches for our customers. This starts with the case color, goes over the face style and ends with a personalized case back. The biggest numbers on personalized watches are sold to different SWAT, police and military units around the world. As an example I can tell that we delivered to US Navy Seals, US Navy EOD Technician, SWE Army EOD, BEL Army EOD, SEK Berlin, Kampfschwimmer, Minentaucher, MEK Hamburg.
It is important to know, that this sold watches were not ordered officially by the governments. They were ordered by members of the units.
SPARTANAT: In private: What are you wearing yourself? What is the mother of all tactic watches?
Dirk Assmann: I am switching between 2 watches. During my day to day work I wear the DW-15. If I do my job in 150 feet deep water, I wear my BT25 version 4, because I need a watch I can rely on for 100% .
Name: Dirk Assmann
Alter: 43 years old
Job: Minentaucher (Navy EOD Technician)
Family: Married, 4 kids
Hobbys: Eishockey / Inline Skaterhockey
BOMBFROG in the INTERNET: www.bombfrog.eu
SPARTANAT: spartanat.com
So….. I guess it’s all in the name….
I love a good watch like I love a good gun; useful and designed to last as opposed to buying a cell phone or TV that is worthless in a few years. Dirk sounds like he has the occupation that requires some good watches. BTW, Dirk Assmann sounds like a porn stars name; sorry but I had to address that.
Good to see products that uses something other than an ETA or Eterna movement
Good watches but… Assmann? Bombfrog?
Mind boggles.
With the Euro in the toilet right now the pricing is pretty decent. I wonder if they don’t charge for the VAT if it’s exported from the EU?
I just ordered one for shipping to the US. it was167,23 Euro vice 199,00 and included free shipping.
These are rebranded watches, meaning you can find them with just about any “name” on them. The 500m professional watch sold by Bombfrog can be found online/ebay, etc branded as Aqualung, Divex, Apeks and Poseidon etc. If you or I or SSD wanted, I am sure they would make them with whatever “name” you wanted on the face. For what it’s worth, its not a bad watch per say but it’s far from being anything special or more high speed than your average Seiko diver. And depending on which movement they choose to put in it, the Seiko diver might even be the better choice.
This ^
The translating…. Awesome it surely was.
Assman?
Is anyone else hearing that scraping noise? It think you’ve hit the bottom of the barrel.
Diving is one area in life wherein the malfunction of a watch could result in very bad things…Assman’s credentials aside, this thing simply doesn’t inspire confidence.
Interesting how none of the individuals liberally offering their opinions about these watches have a business of their own, a watch design of their own, any thing innovate, any entrepreneurialism, or have ever made anything remotely interesting beyond a fart in a bathtub. Yet they all open their pie holes about watch quality, alternate choices, comments on names etc…However they all have one thing in common. Opinions are like the assholes above such as Fritz, Pliner, stink.
Guys like these two and Balboa are little prick, jealous types, working at Home Depot, going home to thier fat spandex wearing wives or boyfriends, talking about their days playing high school football and collecting a paycheck from someone else. No one with an ounce of a brain cares what those losers think. The guy is doing something which is more than you sorry lot can say.
Eat a snickers buddy….
Mr Assmann, if your business is indeed trully sucessful like you tend to portray, than a little light harted banter exhibited above by some regular members of this website wouldn’t hurt much, after all most of it was done in a good faith.
Chin up and can on…
Ahh, he’s back in full force! Our infamous member with irritable bowel syndrome – good to have you back bud, we all missed your douche-bag drivel snippets.
Keep the good work and make sure to post again!
Johann,
I find it odd you write this towards the end of your ranting essay…. “No one with an ounce of a brain cares what those losers think.”
And my wife wears Spanx, not spandex. She’s not a tramp damn it!
Agree with babola, although PLiner’s comments are not “lighthearted banter”, just an assessment of the product.
Hey Coxsmann…. As we say over here in the US …Eat a bag of coxs….
I’ve got several thousand hours in commercial diving on air, mixed gas…… Open and rebreathers.
I’ve also been an innovator, entrepreneur and made many things that you have probably seen, perhaps used.
But you sir are simply not qualified to comment on my bathtub farts….. And they are spectacular
By the way, loved your episode of Seinfeld, doctor.
Coxsman defending Assman….. only on the interweb.
So are these actually made in Germany? I love the look and price of the minesweeper because I can’t bring myself to spend $2000 on a Sinn.
Take a look at the movement used in that (or any make) watch and do some Googling. You’ll find that it’s used on quiet a few watches out there, most less than the $440 US dollars that Bombfrog is asking for the Minesweeper model.
Would you buy a car that looks like and cost as much as a Ferrari but had a yugo engine in it?
Last I recall, Invicta uses the same movement ( Seiko NH35) in some of the “dive watch” models they sell and they typically go for a few hundred bucks.
Part of the reason is that the cost for a watch servicing of the Seiko NH35,will cost you almost the same as just buying a new watch. It’s not exactly throw away, but its close.
BLUF: Don’t spend a lot of money on a cool looking watch with the same movements found in watches that cost significantly less.
No they’re not. I am a WIS and can tell you that much.
What PLiner stated in one of his posts above, these dive watches are made in large quantities in Asia, as white label, no-name. They are usually a copy of a well known and popular watch model. Factories will happily apply a name or brand or a logo of your designation, as long as you contract them for a specific (usually large) number of pieces.
The watches shown in this post have been seen many times before, google them and you’ll find dozen of other ‘company names’ and brands printed on them.
I think we all said quite enough on this topic, time to put it to rest and move on. Nothing new to see here.
By stating “copy” I don’t mean replica or counterfeit watches, but rather models that draw strong design elements and looks from other popular models from well established watch brands. Enough to appear to be similar or ‘same’ to a naked eye, yet enough to be different from the existing models on closer inspection.
Well I don’t work at Home Depot nor do I have a wife, so I don’t know if I’m qualified to comment. But I am a certified Rolex watch maker and collector of all sorts of watches.
The first big breakthrough that you make when you learn about watches is that most moderately priced watches ( or really any watch under about five grand) has some variation of the same few movements. The second is that the watch industry has more nonsense marketing around their products than in just about any other industry.
So Seiko for example is considered a decent buy in terms of cheap watches because it has a relatively inexpensive, reliable movement, but you’re not getting ripped off paying hundreds and hundreds of dollars more for a name or a cool story about a pilot or a diver or something. Where something like a bell & Ross is that same hundred dollar ETA movement but you’re paying an extra four grand for a contrived heritage pilot story.
In the case of SINN, they are taking a reliable movement and making modifications to enhance reliability, and therefore making it a very efficient tool watch. As a business owner myself, I will say that I am not intending to bad mouth a fellow business owner. But with these bomb frog watches I’m not too clear on what exactly it is they are doing beyond customizing Chinese watches. I’m certainly not seeing how it is that they’re making them more reliable