Are you really going to use the watch for something critical? Or are you going to use what they gave you to use? Why don't you ask yourself which watch you really like to look at and fits your personality. For military applications, there's always going to be something they gave you to use for that application. If you use your watch to call in support of any type instead of the dinosaur PLUGGR they gave you and bungle it, who's going to answer for that? All in all, your watch is your watch, it should be something YOU enjoy and until the military says it's standard issue, don't count on it to call in anything on the horn. That is, unless, you're working for a different part of the military and have a nice little black credit card---------in which case you would not be posting here.
My personal thoughts are that the new
Core's are very cool watches. They build on the
Vector series with new designs. I'm hopeful that they will have better BARO sensor and closer reading that the older
Vector. Also, the XM9 has some very nice features and being a
GPS watch, I'd try to find out if the
GPS unit figures out Altimeter instead of the BAROsens. The BAro sensor is nice but the
GPS will never be wrong because of weather changes. (the Barosensor is used to figure out altitude. When the weather changes, the altimeter reading changes also. Not totally a bad thing, you just have to figure it out on your own in the area your in.)
Suunto's are some of the best watches out there. You should choose a watch that fits you and your personality. Again, no offense intended.