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[BoboTheEpic]

Say your militia has NO dwarves with any fighting skills whatsoever, would dwarves still gain combat skills while training?

[Telgin]

Yes, but slowly.

Supposedly if you don't have them set to train and they perform individual combat drills, this will help them get their weapon skills up faster than initial training, but I haven't experimented with this.

[Loud Whispers]

Try get them sparring as soon as possible. Trains quicker than individual drills, and counters the unhappiness from drafting

[Azated]

If you put them in squads of 2 or 3, they apparently train faster due to less time waiting for a full training session.

[Telgin]

Putting them in small squads also supposedly fosters sparring more often, but this is again something I have never tested.  Whether they'll spar without weapon skill and how effective they'll be, I have no idea.

It will probably be faster than regular training though.

[Fredd]

With no military skills, the individual training helps loads, especially if you assign them no labors for a season. They seem to need to acquire a basic weapon skill before they will spar, which makes sense. Now once that is accomplished(If were on Inactive schedule), they will tend to spar more on Training schedule, which improves many military skills. Which the demonstrations that are involved with training will cause skill boosts, since the  dwarves now have a basic skill.
 These rookie squads are also nice to send on a kill order for any helpless wild life that wanders in. That helps boost several skills.

[BoboTheEpic]

Thanks for the help guys! I understand much better now.

[Loud Whispers]

If you put them in squads of 2 or 3, they apparently train faster due to less time waiting for a full training session.

Doesn't really change anything, but 3 squads of 3 gives more chances of more sparring than a single squad of 9, as only 2 dwarves can spar per squad at a time. So it's just good for all generally :p

[Nan]

And the best way to train marksdwarves is to shoot at wildlife. A full squad of 10 marksdwarves with no skill at all, will probably train up to novice marksdwarf on a single fox, because they miss so much when low level (and I think small targets are difficult to hit, making things like bunnies good for training). You get much more skill per bolt by shooting at live targets, and it's less finicky than archery ranges, even though I can get archery ranges to work, I choose not to use them - since shooting at wildlife is so much more effective.

Ranged skills tend to train up a lot faster in combat than melee skills do, it seems that most of my melee dwarves skills come from sparring, without doing cheesy things (like arming dwarves with training swords and beating a captive wild turkey) melee dwarves seem to show very little skill gain from combat. I suspect this is because melee fights tend to end faster, because once the enemy passes out, melee dwarves tend to behead or brainshot it, while marksdwarves will keep hailing on the unconscious target for a good while. Also the highest skill military dwarves often move and kill so quickly that the lesser skilled melee dwarves can't keep up - in contrast with ranged dwarves who all have the same range, so start firing at the same time and will all fire throughout the battle.

[greycat]

If you put them in squads of 2 or 3, they apparently train faster due to less time waiting for a full training session.

I never see a "full training session" even with a squad of 10.  Instead, I see the squad performing multiple skill-teaching sessions at the same time (2 dwarves doing a wrestling demonstration, 3 doing a shield demonstration, etc.).

Putting them in small squads also supposedly fosters sparring more often, but this is again something I have never tested.

That might be correct.  I don't know either.

[i2amroy]

If you put them in squads of 2 or 3, they apparently train faster due to less time waiting for a full training session.

Doesn't really change anything, but 3 squads of 3 gives more chances of more sparring than a single squad of 9, as only 2 dwarves can spar per squad at a time. So it's just good for all generally :p

Actually I believe someone did some testing and found out that once your group hits about 8 dwarves then you can have two group sparring simultaneously (so 4 dwarves total). It's still lower percentage of the total, and it's fairly rare, but it is possible.

[Adn]

About what skill level do they need to start sparring and in what skills? My one squad has been doing training sessions and individual combat training for at least 2 years and they still haven't sparred. Safe to say that when a group of goblin bowmen came, my squad was quickly turned into pincushions. Does it normally take so long when they have no starting skills and no danger room?

[i2amroy]

I believe that dwarves won't spar unless they both have a small amount of skill (which is why people suggest that you should let them do individual drills at the beginning if they have no skills at all). As for the exact amounts, I don't believe that anyone has done any testing on the subject to discover it. This is why it's extremely useful to either start with a military dwarf or pick a peasant that already has some military skill to build your military on, as their teaching sessions can actually raise dwarves with no skill up to the point where they start sparring much faster then most other methods to reach that point.

[Rude]

I made note of a "recruit" sparring a few days ago. He was sparring with someone with a mediocre amount of weapon skill -- less than "skilled". So if it is triggered by skill level, it's very low. If they are not sparring, its probably something to do with your alerts/ scheduling.

[Poindexterity]

nothing trains faster than actual combat.