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[Sir Leonard III]

During my sieges I have noticed that my marksdwarves DO NOT shoot the enemy. They simply run up to it and bash its face in with the crossbow. As this may be good with a silver crossbow, a wooden crossbow bounces off simple wool robes.
How do I make it so marksdwarves shoot their bolts and arrows? I am fairly new to the game, so is there something I am missing? I have turned on combat and training for ammunition on the military screen.

[Lytha]

Have they got a quiver each? They need one so that they can carry around their bolts.

[Sir Leonard III]

Yes, they have enough quivers.
Even if some do not have quivers the rest have quivers, so could I be doing something wrong? Or is this a bug?

[Lytha]

I don't know, really. I only use the military to put clothes (and armor, and crossbows) onto my civilians. I disable ammo for training for these, so maybe that's something you could try to toggle.

[Sir Leonard III]

I'll try that, thanks for the advice.

[Psieye]

Need more information. How are you telling your marksdwarves to participate in the siege? What is your ammo settings? Where are your ammo stockpiles? How many bolts do they hold in their quivers when they start fighting?

[Guedez]

Try removing the bolts assigned to hunters, that will probably fix

[JonBrant]

I've noticed that I usually tell my dorvz to attack using a move command, because otherwise they stand around and pick their noses for a while and one idiot dwarf runs in solo and dies. I've also noticed that with my marksdorvz if I do this on top of the enemy like with melee, well, they run in and melee. Placing the move order just a little further away seems to get them to shoot

[ThirdSpartacus]

If marksdwarves are literally standing on the enemy they WILL melee. However, the more prevalent behavior is shooting.

1) As one of the previous posters mentioned, make sure they are equipped with enough quivers. Sometimes, even if your fortress has just "enough" quivers, they may not be claimed and equipped by your markdwarf for a variety of possible reasons (hunters grab 'em first, being moved en route to a stockpile, at the bottom of a lake, dumped, forbidden, etc.). To check if your markdwarves have a quiver equipped, open up the unit list, select the soldier, press "i" (or something) and check their inventory list for a quiver.

2) While you're at it, make sure there are enough bolts available and assigned to your marksdwarves. Somewhere in the military interface (in the supplies tab I think?) there is the allocation of bolts to each squad and the hunters as a whole. By default hunters are assigned 250 bolts so unassign these if you have hunters. Then assign your squad a bunch of bolts (25 for each dwarf in the squad is suitable I think?) and make sure they are set to Combat - represented by a red C next to the amount of bolts. Whether or not they are also set to Train doesn't matter, I think. While you're in Step 1's inventory check for a quiver, if you do find the quiver, press Enter to check its contents and see if there are bolts in there.

3) If the above steps have not worked and you are ridiculously hopeful like me, make sure your markdwarf squad is assigned a barracks in which to sleep and train and also assigned a series of archery ranges set to train at. These were the requirements I've found markdwarves need to practice shooting instead of melee while in peacetime. Doing this step will probably not work, but yeah.

Sooooo, in summary, do everything you already said you did again.
 

[Fredd]

There is a range where if the enemy enters, marksdwarves will go into melee mode once their quiver is depleted, and if they can path to the enemy. If they cannot path, will return for ammo. This is why archers behind fortifications work. Station commands(move orders) also involves line of sight. Try adventure mode to experiment with this idea.
 For a added safeguard, set a training month for your archers, and besides crossbows, add a warhammer to their equipment. When supplies for training bolts are low, they will train in hammer plus crossbow lessons, other assorted skills. Dodge and shield is useful

[outofpractice]

I have had this exact problem a couple of times. Here are some of the solutions.

1. Unassign all ammo to hunters / marksdwarves. Reassign.

2. Increase your ammo supply and count. Go into military screen, ammunition... set the ammo amount for you marksdwarves at 1000+ (no idea why, but this works)

3. Build lots more ammunition.

4. If the above fails. Also issue them with a melee weapon. Yes they can have both.

[Fredd]

Out reminded me of a problem with ammo. If any of the quivers have a extra stack of ammo, dump the contents of the bottom stack. Then claim them after they get dumped. It seems to free them up, for reassignment.
 Also check your quiver supply for bolts. Repeat the above, if they have any. It seems to be the problem in assigning. CT assignment for bolts mean they restock quivers. So previously assigned bolts stay there. Dumping, then claiming thus frees them for reassignment, especially assigned bolts to hunters. A leftover from the armorer coding.