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[GoldenShadow]

I got the idea to try a 2 person squad so the soldiers will spar with each other constantly. It does work.  Before embark, I looked at all of my starting 7 and picked out the 2 best fit dwarfs. One was very agile, very strong, and the other was very agile and very tough. I gave both of them +5 fighter and +5 dodging. I start the fort and quickly churn out 2 training swords and assign them. Stick them in a 2 man squad and set them on non stop training. they were sparring constantly. In just 2 years, they are legendary +15 fighters and +14 swordsdwarves. I'd call this a success. I swapped out the traiing uniform with full iron plate and an iron sword. (I don't have any flux for steel) they are beasts against anything which comes through the front door. I don't even have traps set up.
Anyway. Thanks to all the deadbeat immigrants. I'm sitting on 80+ dwarfs that I am desperately trying to keep fed. I pause the game and start looking for 2 good candidates. I find 2 that have agile and toughness. I split my legendary sworddwarfs into 2 squads and assign a recruit to each one. The biggest problem I am noticing is that nobody is sparring. The legendary is just doing demonstrations to the rookie.

This leads to my conclusion:
Dwarfs with equal skills will spar to train. Those that are unequal demonstrate. Demonstrating seems to be slower for leveling up combat skills. The only thing I wonder if if when the teaching skill levels up, those demonstrations will become more effective in the long run. I wonder if I should have dumped skill points into teacher instead of fighter, since fighter trains much faster with sparing.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I had good success with a martial artist embark--sensei with a point in teacher, the rest in wrestling/striking/dodging and students, each with one productive skill, one student and the rest in wrestling/striking/dodging.

Some demonstrations, then sparring, sparring, sparring, legendary by spring of second year.

[Loud Whispers]

I start with 3 Dwarfs with proficient teaching and proficient (weapon choice), all put in one squad set 2 to spar all year and it results in all three becoming legendary before the first year.

[GoldenShadow]

I am beginning to think that training weapons have no value over regular weapons as far as training speed is concerned. Their value is that you can build them nearly instantly and set your first settlers to train without needing to spend lots of points on bringing real weapons or setting up a complex ore mining-smelting-smithing operation. Just chop down a few trees and give them some sticks to get some early practice with. I can't see any reason to continue using training weapons once you have to real thing. They never seem to injure each other while sparring. Every attack is s 'light tap' With a training sword or an iron sword. It can be a liability if you need them to defend against some wildlife and forget to swap their equipment.

Well, on the other hand, it could provide some use as a low damage weapon against pitted prisoners. Because you don't use sharp swords on pinatas, you use a stick.

[khearn]

Training weapons are largely a leftover from earlier versions (before my time) where dwarves could get injured by sparring with real weapons. As you have noted, this is no longer a problem. You also seem to have discovered the few remaining uses for training weapons.

[schismatise]

I believe 5 in teacher and 5 in either student or weapon skill is the ideal setup. As noted, squads of 3 are almost as efficient as squads of 2, as one dwarf is often eating/drinking/sleeping/pickupequipment/getprovisions anyway, leaving the other 2 to spar. Sparring generates XP primarily for weapon skill / fighter and shield user if they have a shield equipped (other skills go up very slowly in comparison, but they do go up). Adding points to skills other than these main skills means demonstrations to teach those skills to anyone who doesn't have them, and less sparring. Teacher skill greatly helps the demonstrations to new soldiers, and student skill greatly helps the benefits of demonstrations.

Further reading on recent discussion of military on this board can be found here, here, here and here, to name a few.

[krenshala]

Training weapons are largely a leftover from earlier versions (before my time) where dwarves could get injured by sparring with real weapons. As you have noted, this is no longer a problem. You also seem to have discovered the few remaining uses for training weapons.

I build 10 training weapons and 10 wooden shields, and keep them for my FNGs to train with until I assign them to their "real" squad, where they will get real weapons (and possibly a non-wooden shield, although most times i stick with wood shields).  Using them means you can train your early militia while you build up whatever armor and/or weapons you want them to use -- definitely useful, especially if you have to find/smelt the metal for making their gear.

[Fredd]

kren has it right, to train future soldiers, training weapons/wooden shields are the way to go, plus some type of cheap armor(maybe a piece of leather armor). When they do start sparring, the piece of armor/weapon/wooden shield will allow them the benefits of gaining weapon/shield user/armor user skills.
 If you do not want the danger room technique, get the squads training early, and fast as you can. When the metal industry gets developed, then start churning out better armor,weapons to equip your future full time military.
 I am now trying a test to see if even numbers of a squad, 2/4/6/8  +1 will start sparring more during a training order month, with the best skilled soldier(militia commander) is only included in the preferred soldiers orders occasionally a training month on the yearly schedule. The demonstrations still help, I think, but sparring increases survivability.