I've had my 1945 chrono for almost two weeks now and enjoy it mightily. It fits great, has good accuracy, nice chrono action and has great presence. However, I've become aware of the impracticality of the chrono feature on this particular design.
As you can see from the design of the dial there are only about 36 second markers shown on the scale due to the large rectangular dials for the constant seconds and chrono minute registers which take up a lot of real estate. Furthermore, the red pointer of the chrono second hand only intersects the outer scale for 16 seconds. Therefore actually using the chrono for any meaningful close timekeeping (to the exact second) is not practical.
In spite of this I don't feel this is a shortcoming at all as a chrono feature today is really of little use in practicality. And this design is really made for maximum visual effect which I think it accomplishes admirably. I suppose any square/rectangular dial chrono has this shortcoming, but it is magnified with the large rectangular subdials of the 1945.
Would I reconsider this purchase based on this observation? NO!! The overall execution is too nice and pleasing to be overlooked. But if you are out there timing your race horses or taking your pulse you better look for a round dial chrono.
Just an observation on a Sunday morning.
