As I recall they were Imperial Super Commandos. Or at least Boba's armor was. Though I don't know if he called them Mandalorians. That name first popped up in the original Marvel Star Wars.
The first appearance of the word "Mandalore" that I've found so far is the ESB Sketchbook, publishing date June 1980. Couple years before the Marvel story arc. Joe Johnston wrote the words, and most of the art therein is from him and Nilo Rodis.
The only things I've found that pre-date that don't use the word. The gestalt I accumulated from the novelization, comic adaptation, storybook, and elsewhere peripheral to the film's release was that Boba Fett was the most feared/notorious bounty hunter in the galaxy, and he wore a battered, armored, weapon-covered spacesuit of a type worn by a race of evil warriors defeated by the Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars.
I'm pretty sure "Mandalore/Mandalorian" comes from George's notes somewhere and that's where Joe got it, as the "elite Imperial troops tracking Our Heroes" evolved in two directions -- into the Snow Troopers one way, and Boba the other. David Michelini, who wrote the two-issue arc on Mandalore for Marvel,
also got the general "Boba's homeworld has been occupied by the Empire since their defeat" from Lucasfilm contacts. But there's a lot
also that we frustratingly
can't know, due to George's demonstratively poor communication skills:
• Boba is never explicitly stated in materials peripheral to ESB to
be Mandalorian, just that he wears their armor, and thus ancillary speculation covered all the bases between "he is" and "he isn't".
• When
were the Clone Wars? How long did they last? Who was fighting them? George way over-streamlined when he decided in late '77 that there was only enough Obi-Wan material for three films, but, by the time he got to the Prequels, he'd painted himself into a corner with the episode numbers he'd hung on the OT. Near as I've been able to reconstruct, the Clone Wars were like the Punic Wars in that they were a series of related conflicts that spanned several decades, that the Empire was a recent thing as of the writing of Star Wars, and that Mandalore was conquered and occupied around the time Republic transitioned to Empire.
Some of this still comes through.
• George seems to have had notions of the "New Mandalorians" adopting pacifist ways, and the traditionalists objecting, all through, but there are holes in what he said when asked about it, apparently. People further out had an easier time holding to the old ways than on Mandalore itself. Filoni brought some of that in in Clone Wars and Rebels, some of that showed up in the new Marvel comics. And that's tacit in Open Season. Jaster operated out of Concord Dawn, not on or near Mandalore.
• On the back of one of the Jango Fett action figures released at Toys 'B' We's Midnight Madness right before AOTC opened, I read that this guy was "the last Mandalorian". Which quashed our hopes for a full-on, slam-bang Mando vs. Jedi battle. There were whispers, I don't know how reliable, that George was grumpy about how popular Boba had become and that's why he killed him off in ROTJ, but when his popularity persisted, he minimized his people in the PT as much as possible and still include their contribution to the (now singular) war.
So, from years of learning how to interpret what George says from what was actually going on leading up to what he said... My sense is that in his mind and notes, the Mandalorians had been warlike, but recently-ish disarmed so they could participate in galactic politics. Traditionalists objected, with some seeking honor and some seeking conquest. The pacifists and honor-seekers were defeated, and the conquerors took power. The Republic retaliated and the conquerors were defeated, with the help of the Jedi, and the planet occupied. As Republic transitioned to Empire, the latter sought to harness the heritage of the Mandalorian people and created a cadre of supercommandos to fight for the Empire.
I still view Prime Minister Olmec's line about Jango as being political disavowal, rather than objective evidence to the Fetts' ancestry. After centuries, the people on Concord Dawn
are Mandalorian. I have problems with ROTJ Boba being the actual Boba, and I have problems with Tem being Boba in current material because of age, and I have problems with Boba's armor being Jango's armor because it isn't and can't be, but that's the current official line. And the provenance he showed Din supports Open Season. After Death Watch killed his parents, Jango was taken in by the leader of the "True Mandalorians" and given armor. He was a Foundling. A lot of Clone Wars and Rebels and The Mandalorian seem to be Filoni trying to work around George's annoyance-based attempts to minimize the Mandalorians and get them back to George's
first take.
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