Has anyone looked at creating a gun crew arm set for the existing World Ablaze US Naval Landing Party? I think they would be extremly useful especially for pulp settings .
Has anyone looked at creating a gun crew arm set for the existing World Ablaze US Naval Landing Party? I think they would be extremly useful especially for pulp settings .
I've never done so myself, but I think I've seen someone suggest using these guys for pulp gaming before, and it' sounds great to me.
I can't help noticing that the Digital catalogue is loaded with great stuff for pulp and weird world war gaming - the WWI German Sea Battallion and Imperial Conquests British Naval Brigade (and Naval Brigade Gatling) seem like they can fill a similar niche from the other side of the Atlantic as the US Naval Landing Party, for example.
And, the Cthulhu cult (WWI), German Treasure Hunter set (WWII), Egyptian Undead (Classic Fantasy), and Thuggee Assassins (General Accoutrements) look like great pulpy fun, and the WWI Field Hospital set of mad doctors and armed nurses is just begging for a use in Arkham Sanitarium or Dr. Herbert West's field hospital of horrors (just add zombies!) The Imperial Conquests British Police and Death Fields Alien Heads are personal favorites of mine, the General Accoutrements armed Priests look like they'd make excellent action exorcists or vampire/demon hunters, the Death Fields Runner Hunters are a great cyberpunk-themed entry that could easily be adapted to a more traditional noir setting, and the Neanderthal sets (General Accoutrements and/or Classic Fantasy) would fit right into any lost world setting.
I'm really glad to see that Strange Plastic is printing so many of the Digital sets now, for those of us who cannot afford the equipment and space for 3D printing at home!
In any case, those American, German, and British naval sets really are begging for some gun crew arms and other conversions.
For what it's worth, the arms themselves are probably easy to source from this and other kits.
What might sound tricky could be the stuff that gun crews would hold in their arms and hands!
Fortunately, military scale modeling might have you covered there: there's a niche of the 1/35 armor modeling hobby dedicated to producing tank stowage and ammo, in the form of both unfired shells - in and out of the ammo boxes - and fired/spent "brass". With ammo crates, shells, and brass, you're a big part of the way toward equipping a big gun crew.
1/35 is technically out of scale for 28mm (roughly equivalent to approximately 1/56 to 1/48 scale), with 1/35 figures surley looking like 10' or 12' giants by comparison to 28mm figures, but there's not much to ammo crates, shells, and empty brass to put them in any particular scale, so you're probably in good shape there.
By the same token, 1/35 scale tank or artillary kits themselves can even be used as a source of WWII era big guns for the gun crews to work around, if you have a diorama in mind. It might take a bit of imagination and a stash of styrene rod and plasticard, but I shouldn't imagine it would be too hard to convert a tank turret into a ship's turret if you wanted to!
(Illustration - WWII US submarine deck guns: basically looking like over-sized tank guns mounted on heavy pintels instead of in armored turrets; destroyer deck guns usually looked like taller, boxier tank turrets. Don't neglect the defensive .30 or .50 calibre machine guns that come with these tank kits either, for those smaller anti-aircraft or otherwise defensive deck guns....)
By a similar token, 1/72 scale model kits would technically be out of scale the other direction - tecnically too small for 28mm gaming, with 1/72 figures looking a bit like haflings by comparison! But, I bought a couple 1/72 kits that contained a WWII era jeep, ketelkrad motorbike with tank treads, a little armored car, and a bunch of stowage inside, which included jerry cans and oil drums that would be laughably small for their intended purpose in the hands of a 28mm gun crew, but might be just perfect if you re-imagine the stowage bits as gunpowder charges for the guns, and cans of cosmoline.
I also came across a few 1/48 scale model accessory kits intended for mechanic workshops for tank or aircraft dioramas, which were loaded with fun little bits that could be added to 28mm figures; among the more interesting bits were various hand tools like hammers, wrenches, and so on - I'm not sure what kinds of things you might put in the hands of a pulp gun crew, but if I were to see one or two of them standing aside holding hammers and wrenches and other widgets for making mystery adjustments to the gun's mechanical bits, I certainly wouldn't think it was out of place!
I should imagine that other stuff to put in your gun crew's hands would be similarly easy to scratch-build or repurpose from other 28mm figures or out-of-scale model kits!