Snowtroopers

[Chandra Mindarass]

Thanks, I checked the infamous sites. That was the initial problem. I ALWAYS considered the snowtroopers to be army and the sites state it otherwise....and I like wookiepedia a lot. I don't like that Hasbro feel of starwars.com. There were quite a few clues pointing to that conclusion, but for the game I think I can live with the "borrowed armor"-thing.
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RPGGamer (featuring a big portion of DLOS-stats!)

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[masque]

Well, I don't like starwars.com either, but since it's official, it can be used as a definitive source. I myself prefer wiki and wookieepedia, but their fluid nature makes them less than definitive.

Which "borrowed" armor thing are you referring to? I thought we just established that they were snowtroopers wearing their own armor?
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Chandra Mindarass]

[masque]

I'm nuch more inclined to think that their armor is their own, and that General Veers liked it enough for the invasion that he modified a set for his own use.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Chandra Mindarass]

Well, he's wearing standard Imperial Army gear. It can be seen in RotJ and in various Expanded Universe sources. The AT-ST pilots on Endor wear the same helmets and eye-protection.


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RPGGamer (featuring a big portion of DLOS-stats!)

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[masque]

I think it just provides more mobility in combination with the thermal parts of the uniform, both the fabric sheet elements and the undercoat. I'm still not seeing anything to indicate that they're either a.) not a variety of stormtrooper, or b.) that they're not wearing standard armor for the climate they work in.

The similarities between their armor and the Army troops is meaningless to me. The stormtroopers are the elite of the Imperial military and it makes no sense to me that they would wear Army castoffs. It seems much more likely that the Army copied the various forms of armor that the ST corp used, and may have decided that the snowtrooper armor plates provided the right amount of protection and mobility, and adapted it for their own use, discarding the additional parts of the suit specific to the snowtroopers, the sheeting, the helmets, etc. It may very well have become standard Army armor after that, particularly since it's more cost effective. There can't be too many snowtrooper divisions out there, compared to regular stormtroopers or scout troopers, but they do have a need for specific armor. To take their armor, change the color, and mass produce it for the Army's use makes good economic sense, getting more use out of the cost of the design process. The fact that every source I can find treats snowtroopers as part of the stormtrooper corps and not Army adds to this conviction.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Chandra Mindarass]

The only explaination that I have is, that the snowtroopers are a) not stormtroopers, which might make sense if it was the Imperial Army that carried out the whole attack; or b) stormtroopers, that had to use different armor, probably because of some weird climate problem going on on Hoth. The pilots have built in life-support, why should the Stormtroopers be different? A tempered body glove underneath a slightly modified stormy armor would do the trick, wouldn't it?

Both the Army and the Navy have their own fighting force and armor. I don't remember any Navy armor, but the Army type is established in both the movies and lots of EU sources and the snowtrooper outfit looks more like theirs.

Not only does the snowtrooper armor have great similarities to army type armor, but also not the slightest hint at the usual stormtrooper gear. Stormtroopers have different breastplates and never wear any textile based clothing.

In the end I guess it doesn't matter as it seems unlikely that we will ever play a campaign on Hoth together and since we don't agree on the importance of the armor we're just wasting bandwidth really.
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RPGGamer (featuring a big portion of DLOS-stats!)

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[masque]

A. They are explicitly stated in a number of canonical sources to be stormtroopers. This is rather key, in my book.
B. They do use different armor, because of the cold (hence the name, snowtrooper). It's not Hoth specific, it's cold specific. Snowtrooper armor IS described as having a self contained life support system, which is likely why they went with the army style breastplate, as it has more room behind it (it goes out in a barrel chest, rather than being a stylized pectoral).

From Wookieepedia:
They wore customized armor well suited to the climate extremes of ice planets like Hoth, Rhen Var, and Toola. They wore white snow boots, white heated pants with pockets, and an insulating snow cape. Their utillity belts contained all of their tools and weapons, and their helmets had built-in polarized snow goggles.

The chest plate worn by the snowtroopers was constructed of a plastoid composite armor. Near the center were all of the controls for the completely self-sufficent troopers' life support systems. These included an external temperature monitor, power cell monitor, and the controls for the suit's heater. The troopers' backpacks housed the main heating unit, main power cell, communications unit, and a homing beacon. The pack also had the ability to work as a power source for other equipment. Snowtroopers could survive up to two weeks in even the harshest frozen enviroments on their internal suit power and supplies.

Like standard stormtroopers, snowtroopers would wear a black two-piece temperature control body glove. Their armor consisted of eighteen pieces and included personal environment units as well as improved heating, and an exterior oversuit that was airtight. They wore breather hoods attached to their face plates.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Chandra Mindarass]

[masque]

I'll agree that the Army uses a similar breastplate, that's obvious just from looking. I said as much up above.

I doubt, however, that the Army uses the specialized equipment that make up the rest of the snowtrooper armor. They simply don't need it for the jobs they do.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Chandra Mindarass]

[masque]

The Army does have to occupy the territory, but the life support equpment in snowtrooper armor is to keep them alive under conditions where the troopers are dropped in, during attacks. Once the place is conquered, the Army will have garrisons and more permanent emplacements, and lugging all that survival gear will be less necessary since they have a base of operations to get support from. That's all I meant by the equipment being less necessary.

You're free to believe that some of the snowtroopers are army guys in white armor, but there's no documentation to support that notion and I'll continue to disagree. There are a variety of different types of stormtrooper armor, specialized for purpose and environment, and so I see no issue with "stormtroopers not wearing stormtrooper armor". There's regular stormtroopers, scout troopers, space troopers, Spec Force stormtroopers, aquatic troopers, sandtroopers, and all of them have variants to their armor. It doesn't make them not stormtroopers.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Chandra Mindarass]

Yeah, but they have variants of the same armor. Scouttroopers have different helmets and different joint padding, but the difference is only in a handful of details, while the snowtroopers wear a totally different kind of armor. I can't make any more new points, but the snowtroopers are wearing armor parts over white clothing plus a face mask with life support. The stormtroopers wear a complete armor suit. Nothing that could catch fire or get stuck in a closing door.
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RPGGamer (featuring a big portion of DLOS-stats!)

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[masque]

The logistical reasons for the differences have already been explained.

It's not like they're running around unprotected, the snowtroopers have just as many pieces to their armor as regular stormtroopers (18), it's just that some of it is covered by a fabric oversuit which is designed to provide additional protection from the cold. Insulation is key in cold weather environments. Catching fire, less of a risk.
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Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.

[Chandra Mindarass]