Can I equip Dead Thralls with better equipment?

Problem I am facing is they die too easily, and would like them to equip better gear.

Things that I already tried:

1. I killed them
2. Then removed all their equipment
3. Then I replaced it with Deadric Equipment.
4. Then I cast Dead Thrall on them.
5. I then fast traveled to some other location. They are still very naked.

So, Is there any way to make a bandit chief/or any other class of NPC that is my Dead Thrall wear Deadric Armor?

I am playing Special Edition of Skyrim if that helps.

Solution 1:

It will only equip gear (weapons excluded) it had when it died.

To equip dead thralls with better equipment you have to kill them near enchanting table/smithy, loot their corpse, improve the gear they had on workbench/grindstone/arcane enchanter and give it back to thrall. After you change cell (fast travel, for example), thrall will equip his "default" gear you've improved for him.
The only workaround I know of is to use Dead Thrall on your follower. It will keep all the equipment it wore in life. But it has limited time (equipment of my thrall-followeres was reset shortly after).
Dead thralls will equip whatever weapon you present them, given they do not have their default weapon in inventory (I'll double check it to make sure). Alternatively you can take all their weapon and drop the one you want them to equip during battle. Usualy zombies and such equip first weapon they see when they are in combat and don't have any on them.

Mods

I didn't mention any mods since SkyrimSE prevents player from geting achievements if you install any (as far as I understood, feel free to clarify), but I'm pretty sure there are mods which will help you with this situation.

Sources:

ElderScrolls Wikia