Imperial Uniforms Question

Do we ever see any Stormtrooper Corps officer's uniforms? The only Imperial officer uniforms in the OT were on Fleet personel, except for Veers in TESB, and he was in a combat uniform. Have there ever been depictions of other Imperial officer uniforms?

 

The Imperial officers seen on the Tantive IV in ANH belonged to the 501st Legion, and Veers was wearing a non-combat uniform in his first couple of appearences in TESB.

 

Yeah - both Praji and Daine Jir, the un-armored guys Vader talks to at the very beginning of ANH, are stormtroopers; they wear a black version of the standard Imperial officer's uniform.

We also see ISB officers, who wear white.

 

[image=http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/thumb/4/42/CommanderPraji.jpg/450px-CommanderPraji.jpg] [image=http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/thumb/b/b4/Vaderpoint.jpg/800px-Vaderpoint.jpg]

Then again we have Lt. Tanbris who was a former TIE pilot:

[image=http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/a/a3/Lieutenant_tanbris.jpg]

If I remember aright, the black uniforms only showed up in ANH.

 

Aaaaaaaaaand thus it is proved that I have crap memory and am a bad SW fan.

 

Notice how they have pens in their pocket, though of course they don't use paper in the Republic/Empire so they will have nothing to write on with those. Unless they're for writing on flimsiplast(sp).

 

The officers in black show up again in ROTJ.

 

Those have long been established as code cylinders.

 

Isnt there a light green/tan uniform that is in some scenes. I think that some officers are wearing it that pass Luke Han and Chewie when they are getting on the turbolift in the Deathstar

 

Styluses are still used (not saying they are styluses) in the GFFA, I believe, to write on touchscreen datapads or whatever. They don't necessarily have to be pens.

 

Plus we do briefly see a grand adimral in white in the conference in ANH, I think that Admiral Yularen of the Clone Wars cartoon is supposed to be the same guy.

 

That's Yularen all right, but he's not an admiral, he's a member of the security bureau, who all wear white. He left the navy at some point in the dark times.

 

It's only C-canon (and really only CCG-canon) that they're officers.

Here's what we really see:

In A New Hope, black uniform is standard for most officers, worn by Star Destroyer gunnery officers (Bolvan and Hija), TIE pilots (Tanbris, XO of the 61st), Death Star hangar and detention-block personnel (Tredium, Childsen), and senior aides (Praji); of the black-uniformed wearing officers' rank badges, only Daine Jir, I think, is explicitly a stormtrooper officer. There are also other officers wearing black tunics and caps with coloured tunics, white for Intelligence, with others in other colours. There's something special about the Death Star Troopers, but that may only be their black helmets and security-police role.

The grey-green deck uniform is only worn by relatively senior Death Star officers (Tarkin, Tagge, Motti, Bast, Cass and Khurgee; only Khurgee of this group is outside the senior command team); there are also some personnel in corridors wearing khaki caps with long trousers and single-breasted tunics, with no rank insignia.

In The Empire Strikes Back, all Imperial officers wear green, including some (Sheckil) commanding stormtroopers.

In Return of the Jedi, we see black uniforms again, with no rank-badges, although some of them have been identified in officers; once again, they're worn by pilots, gunners and security personnel as well as stormtroopers; nonetheless, green uniforms can still command stormtroopers (Igar).

In short: stormtrooper officers' uniforms are the same as most other officers' uniforms; until Yavin, most were black, with khaki limited to line-command personnel; subsequently, all were khaki for the majority of the movie era, but black uniforms returned again by the Battle of Endor, although there's some evidence (reinforced by the Expanded Universe) that officers could still wear green as a more formal option.

No, we don't. This is wretched fanon. Yularen wears black trousers and a black cap, as does another officer with him (photomanipped slightly to create Evax of Imperial Intelligence), when we see them in the Death Star corridor. Not a Grand Admiral's uniform, sorry.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

As for grand admirals' uniforms: How optional are the gold epaulettes? I don't think a single Thrawn action figure has featured them, and they seem to appear and disappear seemingly at random in the comic adaptations of the Thrawn Trilogy.

 

I figure they're a dress uniform/more formal occasion thing--Thrawn doesn't seem the type to insist on them for day-to-day wear, whereas guys like Zaarin are going to wear every bit of deco they're owed.

E.g., "no epaulets" while on the Chimera but "with epaulets" on away missions to impress the locals; though I suppose it's too much to hope that the comics would show such an easy correlation.

 

Actually, a details and discipline-oriented officer like Thrawn would be much more likely to wear all of his uniform's flare, as opposed to an arrogant slobbo like Zsinj, who'd probably wear whatever he wanted to.

 

At least in The Essential Atlas, Zsinj parades himself about in a grand admiral's uniform with all of the subtlety of a neon orange elephant at a black tie gala. Sidenote: He explicitly has no first name. It's like 'Madonna'. And that is hilarious.

 

Thrawn was more interested in performance than pomp, and in building a good rapport with his men. While that doesn't mean slobbery, it DOES mean he probably didn't regularly feel the need to wear a higher level of uniform than decorum required.

 

Performance in a military setting is directly related to discipline, part of which is wear of your uniform. You can ask me, or you can ask Brett-a guy who wears his uniform sloppily is either a) Special Forces (which Thrawn wasn't; he was a classic conventional-military soldier who thought in terms of logistics and manuever) or b)severely undisciplined (which Thrawn wasn't either.)

 

If your uniform is screwed up, everyone notices. If you're an officer and your uniform is screwed up, everyone and their dog notices. If you're a flag officer and your uniform is screwed up, everyone, their dog, and Jesus notices (but then again, I saw a full admiral with a full bear in dress whites once, so people with stars on their collars/shoulderboards generally get some leeway).

My guess is that the shoulderboards and epaulettes are optional or are added to increase the formality of the uniform. In the Marine Corps, the service class-B (Bravos) uniform becomes the service class-A (Alphas) when the green jacket is added. Perhaps this is a similar idea?

 

Which is why I specifically said "that doesn't mean slobbery." Militaries have different uniforms for different situations, and in many situations it's allowed to wear a more formal uniform than the one dictated by the situation. That doesn't make you a slob if you wear the prescribed uniform instead of a more formal one.

EDIT:

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

And as a combat leader who clearly leads by example in many situations (for example, being personally present at important battles) it's very likely Thrawn would have worn the entire getup.

Also, Han identifies him in HttE because of his uniform. If he doesn't have the gold braid, then his uniform is not particularly different from an Imperial Intelligence uniform and Han wouldn't have any clue he was a GA.

So yeah, I'm going with Thrawn wearing his scrambled eggs most if not all of the time.

 

Imperial Intelligence/ISB officers as seen in ANH have black breeches and caps with white tunics. They are not Grand Admirals.

The few post-ANH Imperial Intelligence personnel we've seen generally wear black (Zuud and her boss, and the personnel in Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand).

There's also a possibility that the "gleaming" uniforms of Grand Admirals are cut in a more elegant fabric than the normal uniforms - which could explain why Isard's uniform is consistently identified as a Grand Admiral's...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Okay, ISB. Whichever.

 

There is precedent in the real world for similar things. Officers' eagle, globe, and anchor service insignias are very similar to--but distinct from--enlistedmen's. The most notable difference, aside from production qualities, is the puzzling lack of Cuba on the officers' devices.