Katarn-class commando armor

"I gotta thank whoever designed this Katarn-class armor for us. It's great stuff. But obviously they never thought we'd need to sit down. Ouch."

- Scorch

Katarn-class commando armor was armor used by clone commandos during the Clone Wars. It was named after the predatory animal from Kashyyyk. It weighed 20 kilograms and cost up to 100,000 credits on the black market.

This armor was more expensive and provided better protection than standard clone armor, due to the special composition of its armor plates and the fact that due to the novel chemical properties of it, each armor plate produced its own shielding. It was also optimized for easy bacta insertion by handheld dispensers. It was often highly customized by the clone commandos who wore it.

History
"I used to think I wore this armor. Now I think it's wearing me."

- RC-1136

Mark II Katarn armor, issued circa four months after the Battle of Geonosis, was reinforced against Verpine shatter guns and EMP weaponry, following recommendations made by Omega Squad after their tour on Qiilura.

Mark III Katarn armor, issued circa ten months after the Battle of Geonosis, featured more enhancements, and was blaster resistant against ordnance up to light cannon rounds. Matte black stealth armor first became available at this time.

Several variations of this armor existed for different mission profiles. The ADSD Katarn armor was designed for deep-space and aquatic infiltration, featuring a fully-pressurized suit with a greater oxygen supply. Night Ops armor featured a special stealth alloy that shielded the armor against sensors and made the wearer almost invisible to the naked eye.

Later, during the Galactic Civil War, another version of Katarn armor was produced, although this resembled Phase II clone trooper armor and the name "Katarn" was probably just being used as a brand name to make the armor sound good.

Specifications
While there were several variations of this armor there were certain features that remained the same.

Helmet - The helmet of the Katarn-class armor had an HUD or heads up display that consistently displayed tactical data such as the locations and distances of your target, it also displayed the health of the wearer and the strength of the suits shields, it had the ability to system link between other suit bearers through the use of an internal communications antennae allowing each member of a squad to keep track of each others health and location, it had specialized internal sensors in the suit that could detect the make, model, and accuracy of every weapon that a commando used thus changing the shape and size of the target reticule for each weapon. All of these features were viewed through the visor. It had a filtration mask which could extract oxygen from toxic environments.

Body - The body of the armor had several features such as a reinforced Duraplast plating for defense against blaster fire and other anti-infantry weapons, it was also resistant to extreme heat and cold. It was fully sealed allowing a commando to survive in a vacuum for 20 minutes with a full tank of air. The knuckle plate of the armor featured a retractable vibroblade used for close quarter combat and quiet encounters.

Backpack - The Backpack featured specialized ammo cartridges that hold various different types of ammo. The backpack itself was reconfigurable for many different types of missions such as an extra oxygen tank for aquatic and space-borne environments, a large bacta dispenser for healing, or even an external communications array for long distance communications (i.e. subspace transmissions). It is interesting to note that the backpack had a display on it that showed the last two digits of the respective commando's ID number.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Republic Commando (First Appearance)
 * Republic Commando: Hard Contact
 * Omega Squad: Targets
 * Republic Commando: Triple Zero
 * Odds
 * ''Republic Commando: True Colors
 * Republic Commando: Order 66
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
 * Star Wars: The Force Unleashed video game
 * Star Wars Galaxies: Rage of the Wookiees