Imperial death squad

Imperial death squads were covert units within the Imperial Stormtrooper Corps comprising elite soldiers known as "death troopers".

Imperial death troopers served many different purposes including security detail for certain military leaders and high-ranking intelligence agents, extrajudicial executions, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination. Security and executions were their main purpose, as other military operations including infiltration were only carried out if other elite units were not deemed fit for a particular task. The average death squad ranged anywhere from four to nine death troopers, and were trusted to carry out tasks independent of their overseer under the command of a sergeant. The exact number of death troopers in the Imperial arsenal is unknown, but it was later speculated by New Republic intelligence agents that the number of active death troopers at any given time ranged from less than 200 to 800, making them quite possibly the smallest and most selective specialization in the Imperial Military next only to the Imperial Guard.

Notable death squads included those that served as guards to Director Orson Krennic and Grand Admiral Thrawn, as well as those who, alongside standard stormtrooper units, carried out special forces missions on Kessel, Endor, Hoth, and Yavin.

Composition and equipment
Death troopers were usually selected from other elite units within the Stormtrooper Corps, such as scout troopers and shadowtroopers who excelled among their peers. On top of the training already granted to them in their former specializations, death trooper cadets received an additional one to two years of intense training before being deployed.

Death troopers had two main specializations: security and heavy infantry. Security-focused death troopers were typically equipped with E-11D blaster rifles and C-25 fragmentation grenades, while heavy infantry death troopers wielded DLT-19A heavy blaster rifles and sonic imploders. Some heavy infantry death troopers were also equipped with shield generators. The armor worn by death troopers was enhanced with various gadgets including long-range communicators, jamming equipment, night vision, lifeform scanners, targeting systems/aim assist, voice scramblers, and built-in binoculars, among others.

History
Imperial death squads, next to scout troopers and Imperial commandos, were among the first stormtrooper specializations to see combat, with the first death squads being deployed as early as 18 BBY. Initially, death squads were designed to be Emperor Palpatine's personal execution unit, however their prowess in combat and their armor's effectiveness led to more death troopers being trained and more being deployed across the galactic community. Other than Imperial commanders and stormtroopers who fought alongside them, death troopers were known to nobody else, and many Rebel troopers who encountered them on the battlefield often mistook them for mercenaries due to their unique armor.

Following the Galactic Empire's fragmentation, what remained of the death troopers either rallied under Mas Amedda (who fortified his Imperial holdings at Coruscant), served other Imperial splinter warlords, or went off to fight independently as mercenaries.