Most of the BA / Italeri tanks have crew of various sizes to start with , and a lot of the hatches wouldn't fit a heroic type figure with out a lot of cutting the hatch larger . Here's 4 BA / Italeri German commanders - left to right . Panzer III , Panzer IV , Tiger I , Tiger II .
The Russian figures are just as mixed in size , ( I have the plastic T-34 /76 & 85 as well as the KV and JS II ) . And the Brit commander in the plastic Churchill kit looks more 1/64 scale than 1/56 . IMO its better to have scale figure with scale vehicles . Although I have made some of my own vehicle crews from BA figure sprues . Also Tamiya 1/48 work well as tank crews in the hatch , if standing on tank they are too tall and need a few mm cut out about knee height