I’ve got the new Dragon 1/35 M-60A1 kit in que next and my Dad is not having much luck finding a crew for it. He has found a set of Marines, but he’s ex Army. Marines will not work for this build. Seems the new kit has an almost fully decked out interior and so the crew needs to be out of the tank to show this off. LED lighting will be used on this one. I’m not asking anyone to do my searching for me, I’m looking for any info any of you may have readily available. I’ll be running my own search, but if a short cut is available, I’ll take it lol. Thank you in advance.
There isn’t much out there for '70s figures, tankers or otherwise.
Hobby Fan just released this one for the M60A1.
He is designed to be in the turret, but could have his arm swapped/repositioned to be standing outside of it. Another option is to use one of Verlinden’s '80s tank crewmen and swap out the head for one with a bone dome helmet.
There are some old Tamiya figures that could serve as a basis for conversion. They come with the M106 and M577 kits or as separate sets: 4.2" mortar, & commanders set or something like that. Tamiya’s original M1 and M2 kits also came with some pickle suit TC figures, but with the 80s style CVC helmet. But good honest to goodness pre BDU non Vietnam uniformed US Army figures in 1/35 are few and far between…
Yeah that’s what I’m finding out. I may have to get “close enough” and modify them to suit. I’m going to need to get some Sculpy lol. One more for the wish list. 
You would think that with the way Dragon has been going at Cold War tanks from that era lately in their “Black Label” series that they would give us some tanker figures in a set or three to go with them… US, Brit, and West German.
You’d think it would not be that hard to issue some figure sets in OG-109 fatigues and M-56 gear… Especially since the M-56 ammo carrier was supposed to be “universal” as in carrying BAR mags, Garand clips, Carbine magazines, or M14 magazines.
And you would be pretty hard pressed to tell any difference between a M1943, a M1951, and a M1965 Field Jacket…
All VERY valid points guys. You’d think there would be something out there. Especially since there are so many cold war era guys building models right now. This has left me scratching my head. Call me silly, but I assumed this wouldn’t be hard lol.
They have Russians from that era, but not US Service men? Am I missing something?? Lol
Well, when you look at the times in question, Vietnam gets the lions share of the attention. The stuff in Europe just did not have the exotic flavor and “eye appeal” of troops and tankers in South East Asia. Like I said before, a lot of late WWII or Korean War figures can be used as a starting point for Cold War Europe US Army troops.
I used these recently for 1967 Egyptians! Swapped out their helmets for Russian ones.
Don’t know if that helps.
(I have the helmets)
I know, not tankers…
Those come pretty close.
Maybe you can clear something up for me. Why can’t marine figures be used? Except for the different fatigue hat, didn’t they wear the same types of fatigues? I was in the Air Force in the 70s and 80s and I think we wore the same type of Stateside fatigues. Granted I didn’t pay that much attention to them but I know we had the same jungle fatigues. We had cammoflaged and our tiger stripe fatigues were variable according to which local shop made them for us.
I have a few Tamiya and Academy figures left over from their M-113 kits and maybe a couple others. if you think they might work.
What part of the world do you need them to represent, S.E.A. or Stateside/Europe?
I’m needing to represent Germany in the mid 70’s. I think it’s the blouse pockets that are different besides the covers for Tankers. If I found the right set I could definitely modify them.
At this point anything close enough will work. I’ve found some, but they’re not cheap and I can’t put a whole kit on my wishlist just for a few figures… or… maybe. I’ll get back to you guys on that subject.
Thank you for your input. You’ve got me thinking. 
All four services wore the same cotton sateen fatigues in that period. Different headgear of course. Later on the Army started using perma press cotton blend fatigues. I’m not sure if any other service adopted that uniform.
I believe I’m thinking of this from the wrong angle. I was looking for an easy option where I wouldn’t have to do much but paint them, but I need to change that way of thinking.
I’ll figure this out guys. Thanks for all the feed back.
USMC had their own Utilities until about '68-'69, before changing to the “tails out” blouse in OG-109.
Which then went through a bunch of changes. Confused even more by the ERDL camo going to SEA
What I want to remember is that AF (other than in SEA( kept their tucked-in OG-107 (or whatever Shade the AF called that) Fatigues. They were last to adopt the Woodlands BDU. DeptNav bought enormous quantities of solid OD ‘BDU’ uniforms with a minority, special units “buy” of Woodlands camo. Eventually, that flip-flopped and the buy was 80-90% Woodlands, with a minority buy of solid-OD Utilities.
I’m pretty sure Stick is right about the Field Jackets, other than I want to remember that one of those models had angled pocket flaps rather than straight.
The tough part is the LBE & web gear–once the M-56 gear is introduced. Which is the other fly in the ointment for using Marines to sub in–782 gear remains unique to the Corps until about '70-71.
Which is why the ALCE & LC-2 gear was made so adaptable–so it would accommodate all of the legacy gear in inventory.
When someone finds this crew, I’m hiring them. This evenings commute was totally insane.
Yeah I know.,. Lots of crashes here in the evening commute…
The Air Force wore the same thing:
(http://s213.photobucket.com/user/ikar_photos/media/Air%20Force%20Security%20Police/scan0007.jpg.html)]
(http://s213.photobucket.com/user/ikar_photos/media/Air%20Force%20Security%20Police/scan0235.jpg.html)]
(http://s213.photobucket.com/user/ikar_photos/media/Air%20Force%20Security%20Police/scan0114.jpg.html)]
We started getting them in 1971.
It took a while, but Valkyrie has finally announced these figures on Fb. 
These figures look great and I love that they come with the two different styles of helmets. It has also been mentioned that with a little effort they could be back dated to the late 50’s.
I’m hoping this will be a tend that is eagerly followed by many other companies. 