Russian Razvedchiki (Scouts) Kommandos

[thestoats]

Hey guys, I've been looking into the razvedchiki formations in the Russian army during this time period but am confused about a few matters:
1) What were the foot scout distinctions, if there even were any?
Obviously order no. 469 from the Military Department issued 21.08.1916 prescribed the distinctions for new units that had been forming. However, it mandates that the existing distinctions for machine gun and "mounted scout" kommandos were to be kept same as they previously had been. These would be raspberry-crimson and a vibrant green cuff braids, respectively. It makes no mention of foot scout kommandos, or a preceding order which designated mounted scouts as having those green cuff braids in the first place. Would foot scouts have the same green cuff braids? Gwar.mil.ru claims this is the case in their uniform plates but I'm not sure if this is accurate.

2) Were there any kommandos (scout or otherwise) within rifle regiments?
The same aforementioned order (issued 21.08.1916) seems to only declare the new distinctions (badges, armbands, and cuff braids) in infantry () regiments, making no mention of rifle (?) regiments. One could assume the Military Department meant all foot regiments (including rifles), but in other orders (like no. 716 of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief issued 29.05.1916) infantry and rifle regiments are mentioned independently of one another. Gwar.mil.ru seems to think the exclusion of rifle regiments was intentional, as the website's uniform plates for rifles excluding the designations for trench guns, scouts, communications, and musicians. Conversely, I have heard of accounts of the mounted scout teams of rifle regiments such as the 10th Finnish and Siberian 3rd. As such, I'm not sure whether rifle regiments were officially allowed the same kommandos as infantry regiments or not.

3) How were scout kommandos (both mounted and on foot) organized?
Order no. 1790 of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief issued 25.12.1916 stipulates the structure of foot scout kommandos. Was there a similar document doing the same for mounted kommandos? Also, I have next to no ability to read Russian and as such have had to rely on online translation tools to make sense of order no. 1790. I'm sure I've made a mistake, but my understanding is that scout kommandos were made up of the following combat personnel (I've excluded orderlies etc.):

• 1 Ober-Ofitser (category of officer ranks ranging from ensign to captain)
• 1 Starshiy Unter-Ofitzer (Senior NCO)
• 4 Mladshiy Unter-Ofitzerov (Junior NCOs)
• 8 Efreytorov (Corporals)
• 6 Ryadovykh (Privates) per company in the regiment

I don't know how many companies a regiment would have, as I'm not sure if this was order was issued before or after regiments were reduced from 4 to 3 battalions (i.e. 16 companies to 12 companies). If it was before the reduction of regimental sizes, did the size of the scout kommando change to include more privates from each company?

Anyways, any insight on this would be greatly appreciated!

[cuprum]

Good day. The topic is really complicated - too many small regulations regarding various differences. I am not a deep enough specialist on the topic raised. Everything I found on the topic you are interested in (from the book by Leonov O. and Ulyanov I. "Regular Infantry 1855-1918"):

On January 6, 1917, a new staffing of horse reconnaissance teams of infantry regiments was published. Each team was to include an officer (chief of the reconnaissance team), a senior non-commissioned officer, 2 junior non-commissioned officers, 5 corporals and 42 privates; in total, there were 50 mounted ranks and a foot orderly. But the shortage of combat horses forced the staffing of the teams to be adjusted on April 13: instead of 42 privates, the team now consisted of only 25. The training of horse scouts was carried out in reserve cavalry regiments and was quite difficult. It took at least six months to train a good scout.

In 1916, the following differences in positions were established: for privates at trench guns - a scarlet braid on the cuff of the shirt, for mounted scouts - dark green, for machine gunners - crimson; for military police officers - a red armband with the letters "VP"; for officers performing weapons collection duties - a blue armband with the letters "SO".

I also recommend contacting the team of this Internet resource:
https://unialm.com/pages/about.html#

Perhaps they can help you.

[thestoats]

Thanks Cuprum! Do you happen to know what order number was attributed to the one from 06.01.1917? Also, the order you mention from 1916 was the same one from 21.08.1916 that I mentioned earlier in my original post funnily enough, but as you can see it makes no mention of foot scout distinctions.

[cuprum]

Unfortunately, I don't know any order numbers.
But here I came across an old discussion of the topic you are interested in on the Russian military-historical forum. Unfortunately, all the links no longer lead anywhere, but some information is still there, at least to choose the direction of further searches.
The only thing I understood is that in 2008, no specific information on this issue was found, most likely.

Unfortunately, only in Russian:

https://1914.borda.ru/?1-5-300-00000181-000-10001-0