What functions do the Storm Trooper armor serve?

[infinix]

What good are those armors? They can't seem to stop anything. At least show us that a storm trooper can take a couple of blaster shots or something.

And being knocked out by tennis ball sized rocks traveling at maybe 40 to 50 miles an hour?? What gives? A motorcycle helmet today can take more abuse than that.

I guess the armors are only good as an intimidation device.

 

[Bishop76]

Yeah, pretty much - they just look cool.

 

[Mistral]

Waste disposal and radio storage.

 

[lurok]

Without them, they'd just be guys in black body-stockings. Not a very intimidating look.

 

[DeafPoet]

They cover one's junk up pretty effectively.

 

[Klaus]

Plus the cool looks cover up the fact none of them can shoot, perhaps because "I can't see a thing in this helmet"? IIRC there's only one time in the OT when a trooper shoots at something and hits it, and that's the one that hits R2 at the back door of the bunker in ROTJ.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

As the Millennium Falcon is being sucked into Death Star Bay 327 in A New Hope, we see a pair of stormtroopers, standing in hard vacuum, gawking at it. In contrast, the two Death Squad Commanders at a console seen just seconds earlier are clearly behind a window. The ease with which the stormtrooper helmets otherwise appear easily removed and open around the collar notwithstanding, the intention seems pretty clear, that the armor offers protection against hard vacuum.

Furthermore, in the opening segment of A New Hope, when the stormtroopers board Princess Leia's starship, notice that the Rebels do not have fully automatic fire blasters. My interpretation is that the armor incurs a minimum charge to penetrate effectively, which imposes a cost on all weapons against the Empire. This cost would be significant galaxy wide, even with only partially effective armor. Those equipping the Tantive IV obviously could not afford better sidearms for the crew, than those which could deliver a charge sufficient to penetrate the armor effectively in at best semiautomatic fire mode.

Wankage at the Wookieepedia, on stormtrooper armor and the Rebel sidearm, supports my wankings here.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Yeah, I tend to go with the intimidation factor myself--you see one of them coming your way, you better step aside and hope he isn't coming for you. Otherwise, I think it's little more than a uniform, IMO.

 

[infinix]

As the Millennium Falcon is being sucked into Death Star Bay 327 in A New Hope, we see a pair of stormtroopers, standing in hard vacuum, gawking at it. In contrast, the two Death Squad Commanders at a console seen just seconds earlier are clearly behind a window. The ease with which the stormtrooper helmets otherwise appear easily removed and open around the collar notwithstanding, the intention seems pretty clear, that the armor offers protection against hard vacuum.

What? Okay, even if I accept that the armor is actually a space suit, why the hell would you wear a space suit in a battle on a planet with normal atmospheric environments?

Furthermore, in the opening segment of A New Hope, when the stormtroopers board Princess Leia's starship, notice that the Rebels do not have fully automatic fire blasters. My interpretation is that the armor incurs a minimum charge to penetrate effectively, which imposes a cost on all weapons against the Empire. This cost would be significant galaxy wide, even with only partially effective armor. Those equipping the Tantive IV obviously could not afford better sidearms for the crew, than those which could deliver a charge sufficient to penetrate the armor effectively in at best semiautomatic fire mode.

This is also questionable. From what we see in the movies, it doesn't matter that the blaster bolts don't penetrate the armor. The troopers go down just the same.

 

[Whofan]

Yeah, the basic concept behind both Vader's suit and the Stormtrooper armor is that they were meant to work in a vacuum. There even is some concept art (and now, action figure) of Luke donning a breathing mask. There's a scene shown in some concept art as well of the Vader and the troopers actually flying through space from the Destroyer to the corvette, but that was dropped in favor of the ship doing a locking on thing. Probably wouldn't have worked on SW's limited budget, and would've required wires and all that.


The prequel EU seems to state that there's some kind of HUD in their helmets, which are the forerunners of the later suits. Also if the armor was originally designed to counter droids, maybe rebels are a more random target since they're mostly humanoid.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

why the hell would you wear a space suit in a battle on a planet with normal atmospheric environments?

Seems pretty dumb on the Santuary moon, unless they are ensuring that they are not vulnerable to chemical warfare. Note that the Empire had a mixture of forces there, and more than a few commando-types, so not all their troops suffered the disadvantages of the armor.

However, on Tatooine, the armor is for protection against desert conditions.

From what we see in the movies, it doesn't matter that the blaster bolts don't penetrate the armor. The troopers go down just the same.

There aren't any examples in the films of anyone attempting to shoot blasters at the troopers that could even begin to support this. Unless you have any?

The armor proves vulnerable to stone age weapons, but that has no bearing on the issue of the strength of a blaster shot needed to penetrate it.

 

[Whofan]

Also the Sandtrooper (and spacetrooper) armor could be partially due, once again, to budget, since they're identical apart from the pauldrons, a bit of dirt and wear, and those big backpacks. In ESB, ROTJ, and ROTS which had larger budgets, we saw more variety in the Stormtrooper armor for different enviornments. The EU also added a bulkier version of the spacetrooper (Who in the film is just regular troopers with breathers), which I always thought looked a bit silly (like a lego toy) http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Spacetrooper.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Intimidation, anonymity and conformity.

 

[captcalhoun]

the clone troopers armour has a HUD, air filters, waste disposal, blaster resistance and is also watertight and can be made airtight.

different clone armours have additional capabilities, like the ARC Trooper armour, RC's armour, commander's armour and pilot armour.

 

[Caliburn24]

After seeing the shot-gun like circular stun blast that felled Princess Leia in A New Hope, as a kid, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the stormtrooper armor protected against stun blasts.

After seeing Attack of the Clones, I made the assumption that the armor offered protection against sonic blasts as well.

 

[Holdfast]

What good are those armors?

You look badass, and never have to worry about a bad hair day.

 

[Owain Taggart]

My guess is this: They're Star Wars' equivalent to Star Trek's Redshirt. They're indispensable to the Empire, and they don't care if any of them get killed, therefore, the armor they have probably isn't the best that the empire has. They're able to use them in numbers because they're easy to train. Occasionally, you'll see a few with higher ranks, but that's probably only because they somehow managed to survive.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

After seeing the shot-gun like circular stun blast that felled Princess Leia in A New Hope, as a kid, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the stormtrooper armor protected against stun blasts.

Good idea!

By which I mean, to make the literally minded less unhappy: "Good wankage!"

 

[KJbushway]

I believe that armor is to add signifcant wieght to the car to prevent a small tornado from lifting it up or tipping it over. As far it not stopping anything, I have seen once in the first season I think, where it survived a heck of a hail storm, the windsheild was the only thing cracked.

 

[Myasishchev]

Furthermore, in the opening segment of A New Hope, when the stormtroopers board Princess Leia's starship, notice that the Rebels do not have fully automatic fire blasters. My interpretation is that the armor incurs a minimum charge to penetrate effectively, which imposes a cost on all weapons against the Empire. This cost would be significant galaxy wide, even with only partially effective armor. Those equipping the Tantive IV obviously could not afford better sidearms for the crew, than those which could deliver a charge sufficient to penetrate the armor effectively in at best semiautomatic fire mode.

This is the dorkiest thing I ever read, which is to say, I like it.