Stormtroopers as Revolutionary Cadre
The Mysterious Place of Stormtroopers in the Imperial Military
The zealous and lethal Stormtroopers, clad in their stark white-and-black armor, are the iconic villains of the Star Wars universe. Fearlessly they advance, ruthlessly they cut down their enemy. Forget the stupid jokes of Stormtrooper fecklessness shamefully adopted by the heterodox canon of Mouse Wars: the effectiveness of the Stormtrooper legions is well-attested to in the original films and novels, the only sources that matter. Princess Leia’s personal guard on the Tantive IV feared them. Obi-Wan Kenobi commented on their cunning and prowess. One Stormtrooper even plugged Princess Leia’s exposed arm while she was in heavy cover (and otherwise armored by being a Main Character) from a distance of several score yards, and it was a hipshot.
But who and what are the Stormtroopers? Are they part of the Army, the Navy, or something else? Are they all clones? What are their standard formations? Do they have their own organic armor and artillery or starfighters? This essay answers these questions in the context of my Star Wars RPG/wargaming campaign, which I have outlined before.
If you have not already read it, you may wish to read the first post in this series:
Stormtrooper Organization and Ideology
The first thing to understand about the Stormtrooper Legions is that they are as much a political organization as a military one. They are not a part of the Imperial Army or the Imperial Navy, but a parallel organization beyond the confines of the regular military, composed of the most ideologically zealous defenders of Palpatine’s New Order. In terms of real-life history, they resemble the Schutzstaffel or SS, particularly the Waffen SS, of Nazi Germany. They fight alongside the regular military and, to a certain extent, rely on them, but they see themselves as superior soldiers because of their ferocity, commitment, and zeal. They are fewer than the regular military branches, but their political reliability ensures they are favored with the newest and best equipment, choicest assignments, and a broad leeway in operations, distinctions that often cause rifts between the Legions and the Army and Navy.
To be a Stormtrooper, whether enlisted or an officer, is to be a True Believer. A soldier in the Imperial Army may only be fighting for a paycheck or to fulfill a legal obligation, but the Stormtrooper is committed to the goals of the New Order and lives to see them carried out by any means necessary. While many members of the Imperial Army and Navy view the Rebellion in ambivalent terms, Stormtroopers view them as irredeemable scum. They will take prisoners only if ordered and they are rarely taken prisoners themselves, not least because they know that Rebels tend to feel the same way about them.
Stormtroopers have their own organic mechanized, artillery, and aviation units. As a practical matter, these heavy support elements are much more limited in terms of available vehicles and manpower than regular military units, though they are typically considered more elite. For the most part, their vehicles and heavy weapons are the same ones available to the Army and Navy, and are often indistinguishable from the outside. The main tell is that regular Army and Navy elements are much more likely to use camouflage or display unit heraldry.
This indistinctiveness is by design, for the Stormtroopers are also reminisent of the Persian Immortals: nameless and faceless and so, apparently, limitless in number. An individual stormtrooper, of course, has a name, and that name is certainly known to his comrades-in-arms, but as an official matter they are referred to by their serial numbers, or, if they have won renown, an honor name bestowed by the legion. This, combined with their anonymizing helmets and armor, represents the willing and temporary subjection of their individuality in service of the glorious purpose of the New Order.
(Under this construction, the AT-AT formations deployed on Hoth, or at least the AT-AT commanded by General Veers, were Stormtrooper formations, likely deployed directly from Executor. This is why they looked visibly like Stormtroopers while the AT-ST drivers on Endor did not. It is possible that Veers himself was part of the Stormtrooper Legions and only did not wear the usual gear because he was of a very high and distinguished rank. But it is just as possible that he is in the regular Army and simply preferred to ride with the stormtrooper units subordinated to him, as they were an elite force.)
Stormtrooper Formations
Any military tasked with fighting in the incredibly varied environments of the galactic war zone must be flexible, and so there are very many formation types that may be called ‘standard’, and quite a few bespoke ones for particular missions as well. In general, however, Stormtroopers identify themselves primarily by membership in a Legion. In most of the civilized galaxy, there is one (or fewer) Stormtrooper Legion per sector, while the much more densely populated and loyal areas closer to the galactic core may have many legions in a sector, or even on a single inhabited world. These sectors represent their primary recruitment zones and the location of their headquarters, but not their operational areas; to reduce the possibility of family or national loyalties overriding their commitment to the Emperor, they are almost always deployed on missions outside of their sector. A Legion, which typically consists of anywhere from 100-250,000 fighting men and numerous additional logistical and support personnel, is also the largest formation in the Stormtroopers corps. This is small in galactic terms, equivalent to an Imperial Army Surface Front, which is considered the smallest unit capable of controlling a continent on a moderately populated world.
Stormtroopers seldom fight as an entire Legion. When supplementing large scale army operations, they more typically operate at the division (15-20,000 men) or brigade (5-8,000 men) level. Stormtrooper elements of a planetary garrison (always led by the Army, since garrison duty is not usually seen as suitable for Stormtroopers) are usually no larger than a battalion (1-2,000 men) or brigade in size.
Over the last five years as battles against the rebellion have increased in size and tempo, Stormtroopers have been appearing as shock boarding troops on more Imperial Navy vessels, almost always of at least destroyer size. In such cases, their formation size depends on the size of the vessel and its likelihood of needing to perform spaceborne assault operations, but a battalion is the usual size seen on the larger destroyers, like the Imperator class. These units are infantry heavy, if not entirely so composed. Still, as a rule, most Imperial Navy vessels will not have any stormtroopers embarked in their standard compliment. A large, permanent stormtrooper presence typically identifies a ship as being under the command of a Moff, Grand Admiral, or one of the Emperor’s special emissaries, like Lord Vader.
The standard size of a Stormtrooper squad is 8 men, including 1 NCO and 1 squad second. Because even the faceless Stormtroopers still need a quick and reliable way of identifying their commanders on the battlefield, the NCO will typically wear a red shoulder pauldron and the squad second will wear an orange pauldron. Additional identifying information is provided via virtual tags visible to the Stormtroopers via their helmets and communicaiton uplinks, so these pauldrons are sometimes dispensed with when facing foes who are good at targeting leaders, although these electronic means of identification are susceptible to battlefield interference. Each squad typically has at least 1, and more often 2, repeating blasters, and often each man is equipped with a personal rocket launcher.
(Another aside: I have decided on a standard squad size of 8 for a very important reason that cannot be gainsaid; I have 24 regular Stormtrooper miniatures, making an easy three squads of 8-men.
A Stormtrooper platoon is roughly identical to an Imperial Army platoon, consisting of three squads, plus a half-sized command element led by a Lieutenant and Platoon Sergeant, and a support section, typically consisting of an E-WEB, mobile mortars, or similar.
The exception to these rules are the elite Spacetrooper units, whose large armored exoskeletons and much greater firepower typically see them employed of squads of 3-6 men.
When not in armor, Stormtroopers wear black uniforms. These are not easily distinguishable from the uniforms of naval infantry and Masters at Arms, which are also black.
The Clone Question
Although I do not feel obligated to accept the prequels as canon in my setting, which is based more on the feel and spirit of the original movies, novelizations, and the earliest EU books, I have decided to accept the general facts of the Clone Wars as presented in the 1999-2005 movies, minus a lot of the sillier stuff. Whatever else you want to say about it, it is a much more coherent idea than anything the EU authors came up with.
Thus, I accept the existence of the Republic clone armies and, given their training and indoctrination, it only makes sense to see them as the cadre around which the later Stormtrooper legions were built around. But as the Palpatine transformation gradually enabled the full marshaling of the manpower and military production of the galaxy, clones ceased to be produced except for special reasons. Although they were undoubtedly more loyal, they had numerous and significant drawbacks, not the least of which being the high financial cost of procurement. There were also physical and psychological defects associated with the cloning process, such as an accelerated aging made inevitable by their rapid maturation, which prevented all but the most hardy of them from serving longer than about a decade. Single-source clones, like the earliest stock derived from Jango Fett, were also a strategic liability as they were extremely susceptible to tailored biological and chemical attacks, a trick which the Separatists had great success with before additional source stock were added to the clone facilities.
Perhaps the most important consideration for the abandonment of large scale cloning operations, however, was a point of pride for Emperor Palpatine. It would not do for the public to think that the only people capable of a zealous devotion to his New Order were manufactured in glass wombs and brainwashed since childhood. He needed real men to prove that his vision for the future was not merely the matter of airy philosophy or hubris. And, as it turned out, there were many to answer the call.
Those paint jobs look so good. I also really like the various basing schemes.
Great article about Stormtroopers. I am willing to accept it all as canon.