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As the title asks, if I wanted to kitbash up a bunch of militia or Imperial army men, what scale would they need to be for the mini Marines in Mk3 and 4 to look in scale, 20mm, 25mm?

A few years back someone did the maths and basically space marines are 1/72nd scale.
And when you put 1/72nd humans next to a marine it really does feel like they would be that teeny.

Although 1/56th or 28mm is far more compatible all around... So...

Try and find less-heroic-scaled folks as a base? Bolt Action troops, Lord of the Rings troops?

I use Victoria Miniatures troops and they look properly scaled next to Legionnaires I think

Anvil Industries 28mm Regiments range is good for making SM look appropriately bulky and intimidating.

Mk 3 and 4 marines are a bit bigger than Mk 7, so normal 28mm miniatures should be close to ok. Frankly, I'm a bit bothers by how marines are sometimes portrayed as massive giants (Death of Hope), they aren't ogryns. I would look for a model that's about 20% shorter than your marines, so even 25 mm might be a bit small. But if you like big marines, then go with 25mm. 20mm or 1/72 is a bit small.

Either 25mm or truescale 28mm- Bolt Action’s probably your best bet, with a few sci-fi bits.

You're always going to have some trouble making it look right because GW's models aren't in scale, themselves. Especially older models. Normal humans are ~7.5 to 8 heads tall, and truly large people like Hafþór "The Mountain" Björnsson can be more than that. Those marines and other models from that era are ~6 heads tall. More recent models like the Interceptors are ~7 heads. GW's house style has very short abdomens and legs.

Have you considered truescaling your MK3/4 dudes instead of trying to make the human allies shorter?

Then you need to upscale custodians as well. ATM marines are head shorter as custodian which is spot on.

It's the regular humans that are oversized

This is a situation where you have to make your judgement call according to what reasoning you feel is warranted to come up with a 'final scale' for your dudes. Sorry.

The 'heroic scale' used for marines is an acceptance that certain body parts are not in proportion with others - this is why i don't use the 'heads' unit of measurement because all SM heads are too big.

Personally, if i was trying to 'scale' my troops i would take a picture of one of my marines, crop off the base in the image and then take the cannonical height of an average marine and then draw that scale on the image to get an idea of how tall the models have to be to represent real height humans.

That would at least give you a final model height in mm you could work with. You could then get other dakkanaughts to give model dimensions and whittle down the options

https://www.valiantminiatures.com/product/vm002-classic-german-infantry-1944-45/

These chaps look a good better, oversized 1/72s, and you can buy a single sprue to test them out

. Mods pls delet