"1/32 or 54mm equipment, figs for 1918" Topic

Emhar makes a few WWI plastic sets.

Irregular has a small line of 54mm metals.

ICM makes a growing range of multi-part hard plastic kits in 1/35 scale: Germans, American, British, French, Turks, Australians, Austrians, Russians, etc.

Tamiya also do some WWI kits in 1/35 scale.

However, 1/35th will be significantly smaller than AIP figures, wich are 60mm.

Queen Catherine,

Assuming that you wish to model a standard U.S. Infantry division, and that they disembarked with their full kit, the the troops would carry either Springfield bolt action rifles or Remington M1917 bolt action rifles. Officers and "special" troops would carry M1911 Colt semi-auto pistols or Colt M1895 or Smith & Wesson .38 revolvers or, later in the war, M1917 Colt or S&W revolvers in .45 caliber. Sergeants could carry M1897 Winchester shotguns called a "trench gun" with 20" barrel and bayonet lug. You would also begin to see some Browning BAR's in platoon-level support roles.

Now, as to support weapons; if they had their own with them then the most common would be the Browning M1917 water-cooled, tripod-mounted .30 caliber machine gun, although some troops (mostly State National Guard units or second-tier units) could still be equipped with the older Hotchkiss heavy machine gun or even the old M1898 Colt "potato digger" machine gun as used in Cuba and the Philippines. As to mortars, they could be either 3-inch Stokes or 6-inch Newtons, but their is so little visual difference between the various mortars in small scale that you could easily use a WWII U.S. mortar without a problem.

Now, as to where to procure these items. You should always do some searches on Ebay, as you will frequently find old Marx re-castings of early WWII weapons, most of which will work fine with your AIP figures. I would also suggest strongly that you familiarize yourself with Toy Soldiers of San Diego (TSSD). They actually sell separate Browning machine guns with tripod, ammo belt and box for $8 USD each.

They also sell a very nice U.S. mortar in 3 pieces for $2. USD

If you want some heavier support then EMHAR does a nice little 76mm German gun with crew that's usually reasonably priced from most of the big model suppliers, and the gun can be converted fairly easily to serve as a British 8-pounder or French or U.S. 75mm.

Hope this helps with your quest your majesty,

Bill

I know you asked about plastic figures.
If you want metal bits for your figures, weapons etc go to link

ScaleLink make a wide range of WWII support weapons etc including all the main machine guns, light, medium and heavy, and, in metal, but so nicely done you won't care and fully compatible with AIP WWI. Whilst the kit is a match for AIP, sad to say the heads are a tad small – some work, some don't.

scalelink.co.uk

The scale-link stuff looks really nice, but the prices are out of reach for me. Does anyone make a German 1914 HMG for 54mm or 60mm?