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[Jiamil]

So, I have this fort, around 100 Dwarves, and a full steel armored militia of about 30 dwarves (20 melee, 10 crossbow). Melee all have those upgraded superior or even legendary steel weapons, some even bladed mithril. Well, they have been sparring almost three years now in their squads and the ranged fighters have been firing at every creature I could get hands on in my cage traps.
So, a caravan came and there was an ambush right in front of my fortress, riding (on bugs) goblin archers with rusty equipment. I sent my dwarven guards with a big grin on my face against those few goblins... and after only a couple minutes my grin froze: Those about 10 Goblins have wiped out the whole steel clad military ripped them apart and just lost about... well 2 or 3 goblins. This lead to a tantrum spiral inside the fortress. It is so disappointing, after so many preparations and feels so... wrong! Training for years just to get all killed by weapons which shouldn't even be able to get through the armor. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? I know about the possibility of danger rooms, but I don't want to use exploits.

Is the military useless?

[LMeire]

Were they Garrison trained or just peasants? Legion dwarves train 4 times faster than other non-military castes, so it's a good idea to take advantage of the garrison building for your military. Also beware that steel isn't exclusive to the dwarves in Masterwork, so it's possible that some of the invading goblins had some as well. (Or at least rusty steel, which is almost as good.)

[mahrgell]

At any time you can decide to use easy mode aka 2 dwarf squads for melee.
Actually even a single 2 dwarf squad can probably wipe out any goblinarmy with less then 30 gobos after one year training with normal steel equipment. Not even talking about 10 of such squads... see the fortress in my sig... Im looking for HFS now to see if the demons can give me a challenge in a straight fight... Neither 120+ Orcsieges nor 20+ Frost giants could do even cause a single injury... (was unable to get more frost giants at once, until now)
All the remaining races are pointless anyway.

Problem with training in DF is, that there is no middle ground... There is only instant legendary (2 man squads) or 1 lvl per year (anything else). The 4x boost by the military castes does not really cover that problem. Even with that boost training is quite pointless in bigger squads and the only hope to get decent fighters is to have one out of 50 dwarves surviving few battles and racking up kills while his companions die left and right...
Still the castes are super important, because they change the attributes, and attributes are at least as important as are skills... And even without powerleveling the attributes to the maximum, the boost from the castes is insane. Imho Legion and Wrestler caste are both quite useful, while Guards are lacking. Toughness is just a worse version of strength (str is offense and damage resistance, toughness only damage resistance) but agility is also quite a fun stat (yay for dodging and being incredibly fast...)

[Arcvasti]

 

GOBLIN ARCHERS WITH RUSTY EQUIPMENT............

Ah, that explains it, goblin archers are REALLY broken. They punch through adamantine and orichalcum like butter. A decent amount of masterwork players turn goblins off and leave frost giants on and then go beat up HFS. Ranged weapons are really nasty in valnilla and they're more OP in masterwork. Especially the gobbos. Your military was probably perfectly fine and could've gone up against most anything else(Besides ninja drow).

[Meph]

Goblin archers are still useless if you bring them in close (lead them into a maze, attack with melee from 1-2 tiles away), if you guys can dodge/block well, if you put some targets in their way, like pets/scarecrows, if you use golems or other contructs to draw their fire...

[Splint]

Goblin archers are still useless if you bring them in close (lead them into a maze, attack with melee from 1-2 tiles away), if you guys can dodge/block well, if you put some targets in their way, like pets/scarecrows, if you use golems or other constructs to draw their fire...

Animate weapons work exceptionally well for drawing enemy fire. They seem to be considered priority targets (and I don't blame them for treating them like that but it may have just been a fluke both times this occured,) and it can take three arrows made of the good stuff elves use to break them and they'll just keep coming until they break. Attacking them at choke points as suggested and leaving most of the forest intact to provide cover is also sound decision. It's saved the lives of the Carryscar militia many times.

I personally go for 3-4 man squads (as I find this is a decent mix of speed and general effectiveness) and gen relatively short worlds with fort defense races like stranglers and beak wolves. Armored dwarves don't have to fear bites and they make excellent combat training. Of course either ridiculously high dodge and weapon skill (for dwarves wielding larger weapons like the zweihander) or dodge, weapon, and shield are vital to face off against bowmen with even elite infantrydwarves.

[FrisianDude]

Goblin archers are mean ol' buggers, but I found that simply giving your Dwarfs shield and specific targets helps. At least, it's looked a few times as if indecisiveness (?!) was the bane of one of my Dorfs; he'd dodged arrows, caught some with his shield, batted some out of mid-air, and arrived. Where he ran past a few goblins to chase one further away. Shots in the back resulted.

[Splint]

Melee dorfs are stupid like that. They target the farthest archer, presumably considering them the greatest threat unless someone takes a swipe at them along the way unless excplicitly ordered to kill the whole lot, then they tend to attack more rationally, but they'll still prefer to go after whoever is Target A first.

[FrisianDude]

I just targeted the whole lot; which I assumed was the reason for their indecisiveness. It didn't help THAT poor beardo either that another aim-for-ya-throat squad appeared to his south, and most his companions were nowhere near.

And my current MCom is superfast compared to his melee-brethern.

[Splint]

Choke points and cover help a great deal along with high shield, weapon and dodging skills, as was previously mentioned. Next time position your troops at an assembly area and then deploy them. Sometimes  half a squad will be lagging behind getting rations (if you let your soldiers carry them,) or fresh gear.

I'd strongly advise the use of wrestler dwarves for an anti-archer melee unit as they get obscene agility bonuses. A few of them with shields and knuckle dusters can probably great deal of harm. Guard dwarves are also viable as they learn defensive skills (armor use and shield if memory serves, essentially making them mobile barricades with a couple tower shields,) extremely quickly. There's also the option of outshooting them with marksman caste dwarves.