Stormtrooper Corps

The Galactic Empire inherited the military forces of the Grand Army of the Republic, which consisted of millions of Kaminoan-produced clone troopers, and immediately possessed a substantial number of highly trained infantry units, land and air assault vehicles, and capital ships. These resources were used to assist military incursions against forces opposed to the new Galactic Empire, including the remaining Separatist holdouts such as the one on Desix. The clones were also used to enforce the Empire's authority in early occupations, missions, and security operations.

Clones were also sent to clean up former Jedi or Separatist sites, including the late Count Dooku's Castle Serenno, where a large operation overseen by a clone company extracted war chest. This was exactly what clone troopers Ding and Kicker feared would be their future. Ding and Kicker saw such missions as a sign that the clone army would be phased out, fearing that their future would be limited to quiet cleanup missions while new recruits became active soldiers. Finally, elite clone units such as Clone Force 99 and Purge Troopers were operational. Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin tested the former, while Darth Vader and his Inquisitors had the latter at their disposal.

Navy and Army officers began actively recruiting ambitious civilians for a new generation of Imperial troopers immediately after the Empire was formed. This project, known as War-Mantle, was kept hidden from the Imperial Senate. The first conscript troopers were deployed on secret operations, including the elimination of the Onderon rebels. Furthermore, clone commandos such as SP-113, Captain Gregor, and Scorch were tasked with training the first generation of stormtroopers, known as TK stormtroopers, in a secret facility on the planet Daro. Gregor claimed that one of the reasons clone troopers were being phased out of the Imperial Army was because they were created to be soldiers loyal to the previous Galactic Republic.

Vice Admiral Edmon Rampart, Kamino's new Imperial governor and a trustee of Tarkin, began appropriating Senate-approved funds intended for Kamino by using his influence in the Defense Finance Committee to fund this facility and the development of the troopers' new experimental armor. Senator Halle Burtoni of Kamino discovered the transactions, but before she could act on her suspicions, the Empire publicly disgraced her and forced her to retire to a private life on Coruscant. With the project's funding secured, all that remained was for the clone army to be permanently decommissioned, giving Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine a pretext to publicly move forward with the Stormtrooper Corps. To that end, Rampart began to interfere more and more in Kaminoan politics, demanding to be informed of everything that happened in the capital and making it clear that the Empire considered clones too expensive to maintain. Prime Minister Lama Su, sensing the danger, attempted to organize an evacuation of Kamino's cloning and science personnel, but he was discovered, giving Rampart the pretext he needed to arrest him for treason. With Kamino's political leadership dealt with, Rampart had all remaining Imperial personnel evacuate the planet and ordered an atmospheric bombardment that destroyed the cloning and military facilities.

The destruction of Kamino's facilities was explained as the result of a cataclysmic storm; because there were no survivors to testify otherwise, the incident became known as "the storm" throughout the Empire. Rampart then took the final step in forming the new army, proposing the Imperial Defense Recruitment Bill to the Imperial Senate. The Bill stated that the clone army would be decommissioned and replaced by an army of conscripted volunteers recruited from among the galaxy's civilians to serve their Emperor because the Empire lacked the resources to sustain it, even though the Empire had secretly been training such recruits on Daro for the previous year. Although the ongoing recruitment was kept secret from the Imperial Senate, former Jedi Ahsoka Tano, who lived in hiding on the planet Thabeska before relocating to the moon of Raada a little over a year into Imperial rule, learned that clones were being phased out in favor of recruits. Even though the Bill had not yet been passed, non-clone recruits were deployed in place of clones to Thabeska, Raada, and Desix.

The Bill initially met with significant opposition in the Senate and was tabled multiple times, much to Palpatine's dismay. During one pre-voting session, Senators Bail Organa of Alderaan and Tynnra Pamlo of Taris publicly opposed the need to create another army so soon after the end of the last great war, while Riyo Chuchi of Pantora expressed her dissatisfaction with the clones' lack of representation in a Bill that would have a significant impact on them. The bill proved divisive, with corporate Senators such as Gani Riduli of the InterGalactic Banking Clan and the Commerce Guild's representative passionately supporting it, and the vote was postponed until the next session. Clone troopers publicly and privately expressed their concerns about the government's decision to decommission them after their service during the war outside the Senate. Others, such as Slip and Cade, were members of Rampart's crew stationed on his Venator during Kamino's destruction. They attempted to report the incident to the Senate, but a Clone X trooper, Clone X, eliminated them.

Rampart had dispatched Clone X to silence them. Slip, on the other hand, had managed to notify former Clone Captain Rex, who, along with the now rogue Clone Force 99, managed to retrieve the command log from Rampart's Venator and bring it to the Senate during the final voting session. This evidence, along with former Senator Burtoni's testimony, proved sufficient to persuade the Senate of the Admiral's treason, prompting Vice Chair Mas Amedda to order his arrest. Palpatine then appeared before the Senate and delivered a speech in which he stated his belief that the incident demonstrated the clones' untrustworthiness and tendency to blindly follow orders; therefore, he proposed that a conscript army would be the solution to the problem. With this development, the Senate finally approved the Bill, and Palpatine himself officially formed the new army, which he named the "Stormtrooper Corps."

Due to the difficulty in immediately halting the military buildup that had begun during the Clone Wars, the Corps continued to rely on Republic-era clones for a few years after the Proclamation of the New Order. However, the clone stormtroopers' fighting skills deteriorated over time due to their accelerated aging process. As a result, the Corps continued to accept non-clone recruits into its ranks, with the majority of remaining clones being disbanded four years before the Battle of Yavin. During the Galactic Empire's early years, the Imperial army also deployed Imperial Army troopers on many planets instead of stormtroopers. However, as the Empire grew, the army upgraded, and these soldiers were phased out in favor of more stormtroopers. By the time of the Mimban Campaign, Imperial army soldiers had not been completely phased out and fought alongside stormtroopers, but the army's upgrade to increase stormtroopers had begun.

During the [Galactic Civil War](/article/galactic_civil_war], the Corps underwent an accelerated training process to provide more soldiers at a faster rate in order to meet the Empire's demands. Members of the Stormtrooper Corps would see significant military action on multiple fronts against the Alliance to Restore the Republic and its successor state, the New Republic. Following the Battle of Jakku in 5 ABY, the defeated remnants of the Empire signed a peace treaty known as the Galactic Concordance. One of the treaty's provisions prohibited the mobilization and training of stormtrooper forces.

The Imperial Remnants retreated to the Unknown Regions, where they reformed as the First Order. The First Order rebuilt the former Imperial military, including a new generation of stormtroopers, in violation of the Galactic Concordance. In 34 ABY, these First Order stormtroopers fought against the New Republic and the Resistance, a paramilitary organization led by General Leia Organa.

Despite their large numbers and access to some of the best weaponry, armor, and training, with much development spearheaded by the Imperial Department of Military Research, stormtroopers were generally less respected as soldiers than their genetically engineered clone predecessors by the Empire's enemies and surviving Clone Wars veterans. Captain Rex noted the relative inferiority of the new stormtrooper ranks, believing that poor training and equipment contributed to the Corps' decreased operational effectiveness. Nonetheless, stormtroopers were trained to be fiercely loyal to Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine and were said to be incapable of betraying him. In addition to their allegiance to the Emperor, they loyally followed his Sith apprentice and enforcer, the Sith Lord Darth Vader.

According to Imperial records, the Corps never trained a trooper-turned-traitor, but that was not true. Officers of the Stormtrooper Corps wore black dress tunics, caps, and boots when not in armor. They also carried code cylinders, rank insignia plaques, and officer's disks that conformed to the standards of the Imperial Navy.

A squad of ten stormtroopers was one of the smallest units in the Stormtrooper Corps. A platoon consisted of five squads, while a company consisted of four platoons. A battalion consisted of four companies, and a regiment consisted of four battalions. A legion consisted of four regiments, totaling twelve thousand eight hundred stormtroopers.

Stormtroopers could be organized using a strategy known as Sigma Four to outflank an enemy unit. Sergeant TX-828 once used this tactic against the bounty hunters of Captivator's crew.

The Stormtrooper Corps included a number of field officers in the form of Stormtrooper Commanders. The various Imperial officers of the Empire also had commanding authority over stormtroopers. As the head of the Empire, Galactic Emperor Sheev Palpatine commanded the loyalty of the Stormtrooper Corps, whose members were willing to die for him, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Sith Lord Darth Vader, as Palpatine's Sith apprentice and private enforcer, also wielded enormous authority over the Stormtrooper Corps, transforming him into the Empire's unofficial Commander-in-Chief. Palpatine and Vader commanded the Empire's army of stormtroopers together. Vader lacked any formal rank and was simply referred to as a "lord" by stormtroopers and other Imperials.

Vader had a unique relationship with the Stormtrooper Corps; while Palpatine, as Galactic Emperor, once declared that all of Vader's authority existed only because he allowed it, the Twi'lek Isval, who admitted to only hearing second- and third-hand stories about the Sith Lord, had heard that the Stormtrooper Corps had an almost religious level of loyalty to Vader. Indeed, Moff Wilhuff Tarkin noticed that Vader and the stormtroopers who supported him had a strong rapport. First Sergeant Hazram Namir used the blind loyalty stormtroopers showed Vader as a warning; when he saw his fellow rebels' respect for the Rebel Alliance's leadership, the untrusting Namir remarked that Vader's stormtroopers praised the Sith Lord as a hero, just as they were doing with the Alliance officers.

Vader was indeed a hero to the rank and file of the Empire, including its stormtroopers and the TIE pilots of the Imperial Navy. While the Emperor was in charge of governing the entire galaxy and thus had to rule from afar, Vader led their forces from the front lines and repeatedly led them to victory, earning him enormous respect and admiration from the Empire's rank and file. While other officers may have stayed away from active combat in the safety of a capital ship or base, Vader was someone who jumped into battle and fought on the same level as the Stormtrooper Corps, who watched him fight with chilling effectiveness. Nonetheless, stormtroopers and other rank-and-file forces feared Vader despite their affection for him. Still, that was not unique to the infantry and pilot classes: even the senior figures of the Imperial Officer Corps, who despised Vader and the Commander-in-Chief level authority he held over them, knew to fear the Dark Lord.

Palpatine's remark about Vader's status existing only because of his blessing came during the Scourge of Coruscant, in which a number of stormtroopers on Coruscant were ordered to fire on Vader, with Palpatine using it to try to tell Vader that he had nothing to command without his blessing. Indeed, Palpatine even ordered Vader's own handpicked death trooper guard to turn on him. Furthermore, Palpatine maintained an order among all of Vader's stormtrooper escorts to turn on his apprentice if he needed to give the order. Vader himself understood the importance of assembling his own private forces when he wanted to act behind his master's back. However, various stormtroopers continued to show great loyalty to Vader, with whom they fought directly in the field and held in high regard. The stormtroopers of Vader's personal 1st Legion possessed a level of loyalty that was exceptional even by Empire standards.

• 1st Legion [62]
• 68th Legion [63]
• 501st Legion [25]
• Bardelberan 7 Imperial Garrison [64]
• Death Star's Imperial Army garrison [1]
• Cloud City Imperial Garrison [65]
• Coruscant Guard [66]
• Tempest Force [67]
• Felucia Imperial garrison [52]
• Foot Patrol 7 [13]
• Garel Imperial Garrison [68]
• Gigor Imperial garrison [1]
• Imperial Ninety-Seventh Stormtrooper Legion [25]
• JN-093's squad [69]
• Lothal Imperial Garrison [70]
• Mataou Imperial garrison [65]
• Mantooine Imperial garrison [71]
• Naalol Imperial Garrison [22]
• Naboo Imperial Garrison [72]
• Obumubo Imperial garrison [25]
• One-Oh-Seventh Stormtrooper Legion [25]
• Plateau City Imperial Garrison [73]
• Scarif Deployment [74]
• Scrim Island Imperial garrison [75]
• Team Five [76]
• Winter's Edge stormtrooper garrison [77]
• Wecacoe Imperial garrison [78]

• Stormtrooper —The Empire's main enforcer throughout the galaxy. Outfitted with E-11 medium blaster rifles and specialized armor consisting of over 18 plastoid composite plates.

• Dark Trooper — The Empire utilized experimental units clad in heavily reinforced, pitch-black armor known as Dark Troopers. [63] The Phase II Dark Trooper model was specifically designed for assaulting fortified enemy positions. [63]
• Death trooper — Serving within the death trooper division, these stormtroopers were an elite force [99] utilized as bodyguards, enforcers, [100] and as commandos. [101] [3]
• Purge Trooper — These elite stormtroopers, identifiable by their black armor, specialized in the elimination of Jedi who had evaded Order 66 . [102] A specific group was under the direct command of Governor Ubrik Adelhard in the Anoat sector . [65]
• Storm Commando — Units in grey uniforms were trained to handle the most challenging and dangerous combat situations. [86]
• Special Commando Advanced Recon Trooper — These elite stormtroopers were deployed by the Imperial Military for special operations. [103]