"28mm Vietnam Figures Help " Topic

I'm putting together some of the scenarios from Too Fat Lardies' excellent "Surf's Up" in 28mm and need some help finding a few of the more obscure bits.

First, does anyone make a figure for a Viet Cong or NVA commissar? Would these even look that different from a regular command figure?

Second, does anyone do a useable Rome Plow model? I'm not picky, could be anywhere from 1:48 to 1:64 and I'm happy to repaint or do minor conversions.

Third, and this one might be pretty hard, is there a source for VC 12.7 AAHMGs or any reasonable alternative? I can fill in crew from spare figures.

Finally, what have people used for ARVN? Baker Company does two packs, but there are no pics on the sight and I've heard they are not the company's best. Others have mentioned using WWII marines -- can anyone with strong Uniform-fu point me at some good stand ins, hopefully reasonably priced and readily available?

Battle Honors makes a Vietnam range. They are a little smaller than newer figures so, perhaps, their USMC figures would work for the smaller ARVN soldiers.

AS so far as your 12.7 AAHMG goes, I bought some from Eureka miniatures complete with AA mount. They are found in their modern Russian range.

The eureka one are very good, but a little fragile.
I have some of them from the Rhodesian range.

My personal favorite are from Stan Johansson(sp) Middle East range. They come with tripod and/or vehicle mount. It's been a few years, but I recall making a special order for only tripod mounts. Very sturdy figures.

In both cases I mounted them on large fender washers.

Thanks for all the answers so far. I'll take a look.

Company B makes a D-7; if you scratch-built an armored cabin, you might be able to use it for a Rome Plow. It looks as if they're sold out at the moment.

Tamiya makes a very reasonably priced WW2 Japanese Komatsu in 1:48: link

Call me a philistine, but an armored bulldozer is an armored bulldozer to me

RE: Baker company ARVN, not their best figures but still quite serviceable.

I have a platoon worth. They are armed with M-16 only so I needed to use some other figures to round out the platoon.

If you get me an email, I could sent some pictures.

Vince

TAG do a Commissar as a freebie figure.

Second option for commissar would be Jungle Rot (the old London War Room) they have one or two figures armed with pistols only.

I tried to order from Jungle Rot and the web site appeared to be dead.

Will the guy on the upper right work for your commissar:
link

If not the guy on the left in the Viet Minh command pack may work:
link

Will the guy on the upper right work for your commissar:
link

If not the guy on the left in the Viet Minh command pack (set DBP-008) may work :
link

Battle honors has a commisar type commander in its command packs. They also have 12.7 mgs but they are on ground mount not AA.

Wow, great suggestions all. Thanks!

I see that Baker Company also does some nice U.S. Marines. Maybe these would work for ARVN? Has anyone seen them?

The Baker company Marines are all in flak jackets (very nice figures). As far as I know ARVN never used them.

Parkfield Miniatures do some nice figures
link

Just as a point of interest, flack jackets were only worn in defensive fixed positions. There is a Vietnam board quite a bit of useful info.