CompForce / Legends CompForce was the military wing of COMPNOR , created to provide Emperor Palpatine with an army of utterly loyal soldiers separate from the Stormtrooper Corps . Stormtroopers were trained to obey orders without thinking , but at the same time , they were proudly independent of the line military ; CompForce units , in contrast , were embedded within the hierarchy of the Imperial Military , and their members were motivated primarily by conscious adherence to the tenets of the New Order . In theory , they were shock troops and officer candidates ; in effect , they were security troops and political officers , answerable to the New Order ' s ideologues rather than the High Command — an army within the Army , designed to tighten and enforce the grip of the Imperial hierarchy on the military . Observation and Assault . CompForce troops were divided into two very different cadres , Observation ( also known as Observ ) , and Assault . As their name suggests , Assault units were front - line troops , pursuing professional military careers , whereas , officially at least , Observ personnel were loyalist volunteers , gaining first - hand experience of military life as a prelude to careers in the Army , Navy , or some other element of the Imperial armed forces . In fact , most of them ended up pursuing careers in COMPNOR itself , and Observ were regarded as political spies by line military personnel — an opinion that may well have been very close to the truth , but which also seems to have been subtly encouraged by operatives of COMPNOR ' s long - term rival , Imperial Intelligence . Given that selection for Observ was based on the depth of an individual ' s loyalty and conformism , it would probably be wrong to see most of them as careerists or sadists : the real problem was simply that Observ personnel operated entirely sincerely , according to very different priorities and values from normal soldiers . Their actions and opinions were shaped by ideological and intellectual motivations , rather than the primarily professional ethos of the Navy and Army . The differing needs of Observ and Assault units meant that , while both groups recruited by drawing volunteers from the trillions of Imperial youths in Sub - Adult Group cadres , the criteria for selection were very different . Observ wanted ideologically reliable men and women , for whom a CompForce posting would be the first step on a career in service to the New Order ; but Assault looked for recruits who could be conditioned to serve in combat with blind bravery . Any SAGroup member volunteering for Observ might naturally expect to pass out from CompForce after a short tour and move on to a career in the line military , the Imperial Security Bureau or some other aspect of the New Order ' s vast institutional machine ; but in contrast , only twelve percent of the young men and women who entered Assault training even made it through into front - line units . A rather higher number - around twenty percent - died in live - fire exercises during training , and although known sources offer no specific information on what happened to the remaining seventy percent , the known statistics for training fatalities hint that significant numbers must have suffered serious injury or crippling psychological trauma . If a volunteer for Assault survived to join a front line unit , he or she was usually inadequately trained , thoroughly indoctrinated , and completely inured to combat hardship . Some of them might be naturally gifted warriors , many were mentally tough , but by and large , they were simply those who had avoided being shot . Not to be deterred , CompForce Assault troops performed in the field with suicidal bravery , prepared to take any number of casualties to accomplish their objectives - or if not , to be wiped out to a man while trying . The high casualty rate was acceptable because Assault troops were far cheaper to replace than properly - trained soldiers , and the ongoing expansion of SAGroup meant that , at least until the Battle of Endor , the number of blindly willing new recruits always exceeded the casualty figures ; but at the same time , it also came to define the ethos of the corps . " Two die for every one that gets through " became the motto of CompForce Assault , encapsulating both the insanity of the training process , and the survivors ' literally suicidal approach to combat operations . Over time , however , Assault began to be known for more than simple bravery , gaining a reputation as among the most feared and effective troops in the Empire . Veteran units alloyed real combat skill to their blind heroism , and while their casualty levels remained high , they developed their own internal regimes to equip new recruits with the technical and field craft skills they had failed to acquire in training . Even the best Assault soldiers , however , remained thoroughly committed to the New Order : they were almost the only combat personnel in the Imperial military who believed that their counterparts in Observ were simply there to learn how the Army worked . Field organization . Like all elements of COMPNOR , CompForce was answerable ultimately to the organization ' s controlling Select Committee , which answered in turn to Palpatine and the Imperial Ruling Council . Beneath their central command , the organization of CompForce units was largely dictated by the Empire ' s military structure , with troops being assigned to Sector Groups and embedded in their subordinate Army and Navy formations — although it can be observed that this Sector - based structuring also paralleled that of the two main bureaucratic branches of COMPNOR , the Coalition for Progress and the Coalition for Improvements . Attached to the HQ formation of every field Army , Systems Army and Sector Army in the Empire was an Observ detachment of 471 men , organized into three 152 - man observer companies under a command element consisting of a Captain and four other officers ; the bulk of CompForce manpower lay , however , with the brigade - strength forces of Assault troops embedded with every Corps in the Army , each consisting of three Regiments , and a support detail assigned to Corps HQ . CompForce Regiments were organized internally on the model of standard Line infantry , the sole modification being the lack of security platoons - considered unnecessary for troops whose loyalty was as unquestioned as it was unquestioning . Each CompForce regiment thus consisted of two Line Battalion s of standard infantry , one Assault Battalion of heavy infantry , and a Repulsorlift Battalion of mechanized infantry and scout troops , totaling 2 , 558 combat troops and 782 support personnel . These were grouped together as part of their parent Corps ' Auxiliary Battlegroup , whereas the 144 men of the support detail were assigned to Corps HQ , giving an overall total of 10 , 164 CompForce personnel within a Corps of around 70 , 000 men . This meant that , while detached Battlegroups and planetary - garrison Corps HQs lacked any formal means for accommodating a significant CompForce presence , each major concentration of troops in the Imperial Army was paired with a CompForce command equivalent in strength to almost one fifth of the total combat strength of its line units . One anomaly in the current records is a complete lack of any detail on the organization of CompForce troops attached to the Navy . It can be presumed that Observation had mechanisms for working its people into the chain of command , but the fleet ' s more flexible organizational structure may have enabled Admirals and Captains greater freedom to exclude Observ personnel from tactical squadrons , and whether Assault troops were ever assigned to serve with the Navy is at present unknown . Relations with the military . Army or Navy , the usual attitude of line military troops to CompForce personnel was little short of hatred , albeit a hatred that they would do their best to conceal in the presence of CompForce personnel themselves ; the " spies " of Observ provoked even stronger feeling than Assault troops , but all were ultimately seen in much the same way . As a group , CompForce units were believed to be given priority when it came to allocating the Army ' s own equipment and medical attention , and CompForce Regiments had to draw even further on line personnel if they were to make up for the shortcomings of their barely adequate support details . As individuals CompForce troops seemed obsessed with ideological quiddities , and loyally reported what they saw as a lack of zeal for the New Order back to COMPNOR and to the ISB . Many soldiers referred to CompForce as " CompFarce . " Few records are known of the opinions of CompForce personnel , but it is hard to imagine that they understood what lay behind the double - tongued disdain with which line troops treated them ; rather , such behavior towards the guardians of the New Order proved the shallowness of the military ' s adherence to the Imperial system . In some sectors , Moffs and other senior commanders were themselves staunch New Order loyalists , but for the most part , CompForce and the Starfleet became locked in a vicious circle , each failing to understand the mindset of the other , and seeing instead a dangerous and masterless force who had to be contained and controlled as much as possible . In part , this opposition could be seen as part of the complex system by which Palpatine used every element of the Imperial system as a check on the power and ambition of others . But partially , the problem was simply that CompForce soldiers unsettled ordinary Imperial troops through their fanatical zeal : they genuinely believed in the programmatic system New Order , spending their off - duty hours meditating on how to make themselves better Human beings and better instruments of order in the Galaxy , and in combat , fighting for their cause with a suicidal , inHuman bravery . The Battle of Endor and the slow erosion of Imperial territory in subsequent years must have hurt CompForce , depriving them of their vast pool of recruits , challenging the ideological foundations on which their training was based - and further straining relations between them and the military . But ironically , it was not defeat that led to a fatal breakdown in relations between CompForce and the Starfleet , but rather the reclaiming of Coruscant in 10 ABY , when the Empire seemed finally to have recovered the initiative against the New Republic . Just as COMPNOR ' s leadership saw themselves sidelined by a resurgent Ruling Council led by Ars Dangor and Sarcev Quest , CompForce was faced by an Army and Navy that had found renewed confidence under the command of Grand Admiral Thrawn . The Empire seemed to be in danger of falling forever into the hands of ideologically impure elements - and so began the War of Purification , designed to purge the New Order of imperfections , and , although CompForce did not know it , to pave the way for the return of the cloned Palpatine , and the rise of a new Imperial regime based on Byss . The civil war and the subsequent campaigns of Operation Shadow Hand must have cost CompForce dear in terms of casualties , and did nothing to arrest their declining recruitment base . Following the destruction of Byss , power passed to the Ruling Council survivors , and ultimately to the military and the Moffs . Little mention is made of the dogmatic program of COMPNOR in the Imperial Remnant or under the later Warlords , and even less is known of the activities of any surviving CompForce units at this time .