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[PatrikLundell]

I've just recently breached the caverns and I sent my totally battle inexperienced militia squad to at least pretend to protect web gatherers and the like. I sent them there using the (s)quad (m)ove command. After a short while they started to drop armor, like copper gloves. I decided to explore a little and restationed them to a different location, and they continue to drop at least gloves along the movement path (they MIGHT have picked some gear up again).
Another frustrating issue is that dwarves ignore my designations: I've set up a water timed coinstar, and since dwarves drop stuff in the coinstar at times I have to stop the water timer by putting another bucket of water into it. That's fine, but when I want to restart it I need them to remove a bucket of water from it. I try to do that by designating a leftover slope from building the timer as a pond and designating the timer as a water source, but the buggers insist on going to my well (a fair way off) to get water (I solve this by locking the water carrier in when coming with the "foreign" bucket of water so he's forced to take the next one from the timer, but it's really frustrating nevertheless, and my sink is filling up as well).
The other designation issue is fishing. The dwarves insist on going to the river (which no longer has a designation, since a fair while), rather than the aquifer fishing hole I've created (according to the wiki you ought to be able to get aquifer turtles this way). I'd like to ensure access to shells, since I've already lost one dwarf to mood demands that were impossible to satisfy (silk cloth, in that case).

[Larix]

- stripping (?) militia - check their inventories (unit 'v'iew - 'i'nventory) to see what they actually have equipped. If they dropped stuff, it _should_ mean they just found it was time to upgrade their gear and get better gauntlets. Move commands generally trigger an equipment update, which is probably desired behaviour - when getting them into position for action, you'll want them to be fully geared up.
- coin star timer: is this the wave repeater you're using? It's simply not a good option for a design you want to switch off regularly. Try out other repeater designs, like the fluid logic (consumes water) or the minecart (easiest design needs power) ones.
- fishing zones can be enforced from the "o"rders menu, submenu "z"ones (zone-only fishing). Check whether your aquifer actually has fish first - paint a zone over your aquifer and check the various options, it must show something other than zero in the "fishing" field. If you have a realistic non-fish aquifer, there's nothing to catch there and enforcing the zone will just lead to nobody fishing at all.

Incidentally, no mood should ever fail due to lack of silk - you can always buy silk thread from the dwarven caravan, and you can also order silk cloth from them. You can even take silk (and yarn) thread on embark instead of pig tail - cheaper, and if you don't run into early moods, it's just as serviceable for clothing.

Shells are another matter.

[Quietust]

I sent them there using the (s)quad (m)ove command. After a short while they started to drop armor, like copper gloves.

Check their labor settings - if any of them are set to perform Mining, Wood Cutting, or Hunting, disable those labors or remove them from the military because those 3 labors are incompatible with military uniforms.

[PatrikLundell]

Thanks!

- I disagree that it would be desirable to upgrade equipment when ordered from one station to the next. When being assigned to the military: yes. When summoned from civilian duty: only if switching between civilian and military equipment. Otherwise, when manually summoned, it probably means you want the troops to move to the station (or attack) as quickly as possible, not backtrack across the world for an upgrade first. Anyway, they didn't pick up any new equipment, just shed the current one. Regardless, the explanation for the behavior makes sense from a mechanics perspective.
HOWEVER, I would very much have wanted my crossbowdwarves to backtrack and pick up more bolts when their paltry allotment was spent, than to silently just go away and decide to switch to archery practice (which I assume means picking up bolts first), or go home saying the target is unreachable.

- Coin star timer: Yes, it's the wave repeater. When setting things up, I hadn't expected that much trouble with the coin star (but I think it's probably still worth it; my top armor user is still a child). I'll take the advice and look into other designs. I've never built a windmill, so it might be about time...

- Fishing zones: Hm, I saw a zero, so that's probably it there. I should also check the global setting. I wouldn't have thought anything could be caught in the aquifer if I hadn't found the aquifer turtle when checking out the pond turtle the elves wanted to sell to me.

- Moods: Well, it happened during the winter, and he went mad shortly after the treehugging hippies showed up. Since drinking, sleeping, harvesting, and whatnot is more important than heeding the summoning to trade, I was unable to trade until after I lost the moody dwarf. That didn't matter, however, since the elves didn't carry either silk cloth or thread. However, it's true you shouldn't be stuck like that with proper planning and foreknowledge, and I hadn't noticed that silk was cheaper even.

Uniforms: Yes. I don't allow any of those civilian jobs for my militia.