> $ git clone -v -b master --recursive ssh://git@<internal>/nyfix/OpenMAMA-omnm.git It's harder to understand the problem without being able to reproduce it. Do you have another example with public repositories? > The commit hash from the recursive clone is the hash of a different (more recent) commit: If I understood it correctly, it looks to me that it's another case of one of the most common misconceptions about submodules: they always reference a specific commit instead of branch or the latest commit. If you want your repository to reference other commit of your submodule, you'll need to manually change this and commit this change. One way you can do that: cd <submodule> git checkout <new commit of the submodule> cd - git add <submodule> git commit Note that you'll need to do that every time you want you want your repository to reference other commit of the submodule.