Snowtrooper Armor
When Stormtroopers are deployed to environments that involved ice, snow, or just general frigid temperatures, they would generally be equipped with a standard set of Snowtrooper armor. These are well suited to the climate extremes of ice planets such as Hoth, Rhen Var, and Toola.
The entire set consisted of chest plate, helmet, white snow boots, white heated pants with pockets, a utility belt, and an insulating snow cape. The utility belt contained all of the essential tools and weapons, and the helmet had built-in a polarized snow goggles. Like standard stormtroopers, snowtroopers would wear a black two-piece temperature control body glove.
Armor[edit]
Helmet[edit]
Perhaps the most important part of the armor, considering (for most species) heat escaped primarily through the head. In addition, well over half the electronic interworkings of the armor were contained in this plastoid shell. Not only did it house these electronics and contain body heat, it protected the most dangerous weapon of any trooper's arsenal: the brain.
Capable of stopping most standard projectiles and diffusing a couple direct, normal powered blaster bolt hit, the helmet is well armored and shielding (provided the shot did not hit the exposed face through the eye lenses, or hit the breather mask). On the interior, the helmet was also well padded with cellular foam materials so that a moderate bump to the head would not cause serious injury.
Audio sensors were on each side of the helmet and were connected to Comtech Series IV helmet speakers using three-phase sonic filtering for clear sound. The comlink also employed these speakers.
The physical aspects of the Snowtrooper helmet consist of:
- Dome
- Curved Wall
- Faceplate
- Breather Mask
- 2 cowls (one front, one back)
Faceplate[edit]
The faceplate, or goggles (as some call it), has a distinctive looking bill to it that allows the faceplate to nest comfortably onto the breathing mask underneath.
The lenses (on their normal vision setting) automatically polarized and had anti-flash blinding lenses that protected the trooper against intense glare and snow-blindness. They can also create holographic images of the surrounding terrain or building plans, provided that the helmet computer has the maps uploaded. The Multi-Frequency Targeting and Acquisition System (MFTAS) assists perception in darkness, smoke, and other low-visibiliy situations with a variety of filters.
Such filters include night-vision, low-light enhancement, infrared, ultraviolet, starlight, thermo, fire, and bright light definition among others. Due to the limited size of the helmet, only three of these lens filters can be installed at a time, and based upon the environment, thermal and night-vision are almost always "hard-installed" into the helmet faceplate, leaving one optional filter to the trooper, which typically is either low-light-enhancement or starlight, depending upon whether they will be called to fight inside a facility or entirely outside.
Video recorders were included in some helmets, and (due to their size) often were in place of two filters slots.
Breather Mask[edit]
The Breather Mask is fitted with air filters and fully sealed against chemical, biological, and radioactive weapons, and could even protect the wearer against vacuum for a limited time. A back-mounted tank contained 20 minutes of emergency oxygen.
Although highly unlikely that a snowtrooper would be exposed to vacuum unless his or ship was breached in some manner during a drop, the intent of vacuum protection was to safeguard in the event a trooper feel though thin ice into frigid waters. In this case, they would also have about 20 minutes, although the sudden shock of the waters may have the trooper use up the oxygen in approximately seven minutes if they could not control their breathing.
Comlink[edit]
The Breather mask contained a built in comlink with frequency changing options. The comlink used linked encoding sequences that were stored within the trooper's backpack to rotate frequencies every few seconds while keeping all troopers in the unit synchronized. If a trooper's helmet was removed without the trooper first hitting the comlink's control stud (most likely found on the under-rim of the breather mask), the frequency coding routine was automatically deleted from that backpack. This prevented acquisition of the frequency encoding by hostile forces. The breather mask also had a vocoder for talking to non-snowtroopers.
Cowl[edit]
The cowl of the Snowtrooper is not a cloth as some may believe it to be from a distance, but is actually plastoid like the rest of the helmet's outer materials. Granted though, the plastoid is thin enough to pass for cloth, but is considerably more protective. It won't stop a projectile, but should at least slow it enough that the breather mask would stop the slug. A direct hit from blaster fire would most likely put the trooper unconscious or perhaps being fatal. There are actually two cowls if one takes a close examination, one that hangs from the back, attached underneath the helmet dome itself, and the front one that can be unattached on the left side to hang down, revealing the breather mask.
Chest[edit]
Contrary to what many non-Snowtroopers believe, there is no back plate for snowtrooper armor. The backpack of the armor rests on the cloth of the snow coat and not on a plastoid back plate.
The chest armor consists of:
- Chest Plate
- Several Cloth Straps
- 1 Plasteel "I" Piece
Lower Torso[edit]
Pending
Shoulders and Arms[edit]
Pending
Kneepads and Boots[edit]
Pending
Utility Belt[edit]
Each snowtrooper is equipped with a standard utility belt containing high-tension wire, grappling hooks, ion flares, additional blaster ammo, a survival kit, and food and water packs.
Snow Coat[edit]
Pending
Backpack[edit]
Pending
Assembly[edit]
Pending
Standard Armament[edit]
The E-11 blaster rifle, SE-14R light repeating blaster, two concussion grenades, and one frag grenade were all standard issue for a snowtrooper. Elite snowtroopers were given the DLT-20A blaster rifle as a replacement for the E-11, and two stun grenades. Snowtroopers commonly employed E-web heavy repeating blasters.
