I'm struggling a little with equipping my military. I'd like to be able to see at a glance what equipment my militia dwarves are actually wearing and carrying, as this would help me know which weapons and armor pieces I need to queue up in my workshop. Is there a good way to see this, preferably on one screen instead of {u} to each individual dwarf and making a list on paper?
The military's equipment screen gives a decent overview of what your people have equipped, so making your uniforms as specific as possible is beneficial. For instance, I always set my soldiers to wear bronze early on (I equip at least 2 soldiers with bronze just after embark), and switch to specific better metals as I get them. When I've got a surplus of equipment, I also occasionally set all of my lower-quality weapons and shields for melting, let a smelter melt until I can't melt anymore, then go back through my stocks menu and set all the remaining low-quality items for dumping; this causes any dwarves who are attached to an item to pick up something better.
There's no way I know of to check specifically what equipment a given dwarf has aside from their personal inventory screen, though. It would be nice if there was a way to check units' inventories from the units or military screens, but that's not possible.
Also, how do I force militia dwarves to keep their armor and other equipment on at all times? Or is there some drawback to doing that? Seems like the mobilization delay could be a big problem.
In the military schedules subscreen, there's an option that says Inactive = Civ Clothes or Inactive = Uniformed; use the hotkey "u" to switch between them. If it's set to Uniformed, they'll wear their armor and carry their weapons at all times. The additional weight of their armor can slow down their movement if they're not good Armor Users or quite strong, so off-duty warriors aren't as good at being haulers or craftspeople, but otherwise there's no penalty.