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[Savoyard]

A mass of untrained crossbowmen being effective is quite realistic. Most civilians in Italy and France used crossbows for the fact that little training was required to be lethal.

[Altaree]

For my fort I have 4 types of squads - 
All squads get a full kit of armor assigned set to replace clothes and always be worn.  This stops clothing bad thoughts and wear issues.

Miners and woodcutters - Armor only.  They are already carrying a weapon
Medics/ broker/ manager/ leader/ smiths - Armor kit and individual choice weapons.  Just in case. 
These first two squads are never activated.

8 Squads of melee dwarves - All the men of the fort not in the first two squads go here.  I am not looking for full squads, I prefer to have options to split them up if needed.
8 Squads of ranged dwarves - All the women of the fort not in the first two squads.

This set up gets everyone out of clothes and into armor.  It keeps my specialist dwarves safe and able to work even if I am fighting.  Finally, if I want to danger room my dwarves I can easily send in the men with out having to worry about the babies.

[Altaree]

A mass of untrained crossbowmen being effective is quite realistic. Most civilians in Italy and France used crossbows for the fact that little training was required to be lethal.

Compared to a bow or melee combat, very true.

[Loud Whispers]

For my fort I have 4 types of squads - 
All squads get a full kit of armor assigned set to replace clothes and always be worn.  This stops clothing bad thoughts and wear issues.

Bone armour ftw

[krenshala]

You're probably missing quivers?

Note that: Miners, Woodcutters and Hunters should never be assigned to a militia unit as there are weird uniform conflicts.

With 34.11 I've noticed that my hunters will eventually sort out their equipment issues and proceed as normal.  The problem is, if I take them off active duty they drop their active duty uniform wherever they happen to be standing and run off to get their hunter uniform items from the store room.

When activating them, they make four, five, or even six trips to the store room to drop off and/or pick up equipment before they finally follow their station orders.  And its usually something like "drop off crossbow, move to station, realize I don't have a crossbow, go pick one up, move to station, realize I have hunter bolts, go drop that off, move to station, I need a quiver, go get a quiver ..."  Eventually they arrive at the station point and begin firing at targets.

[Herpaderpalerp]

Miners and woodcutters - Armor only.  They are already carrying a weapon
Medics/ broker/ manager/ leader/ smiths - Armor kit and individual choice weapons.  Just in case. 
These first two squads are never activated.

8 Squads of melee dwarves - All the men of the fort not in the first two squads go here.  I am not looking for full squads, I prefer to have options to split them up if needed.
8 Squads of ranged dwarves - All the women of the fort not in the first two squads.

Interesting...
Going to have to try out your style.

[NRDL]

Okay, okay, make quivers, get the miner, woodcutters, and I suppose the expedition leader out. 

[wuphonsreach]

I've refined my approach a bit on militia (at least, I think it's slightly better).

First uniform is simply: Crossbow (any material) + Iron Buckler (which weighs 7).  Plus the Quiver (roughly weight 1), wooden bolts are weight 5 for a stack of 25, dwarves usually carry 2 stacks.

Later, when the metal industry is up and running, I go with:  (the uniform is still designed to go "over" clothing)

- Crossbow (any, wood/bone are about weight 1, steel is 3)
- Iron Buckler (weight 8, shields are 10)
- Iron Mail Shirt (weight 19)
- Iron Helm (weight 7)
- Iron Chain Leggings (weight 22)
- Iron Gauntlets (weight 1 each)
- Iron High Boots (weight 3 each)

I'm not sure whether the chain leggings is too much weight, or whether the shield is worth the (miniscule) increased weight.  Breastplates are probably too much additional weight as well, at least for dwarves without armor skill (because it slows their movement).

[Altaree]

I think bucklers are the only shield that works with crossbows.

[Loud Whispers]

I think bucklers are the only shield that works with crossbows.

Nope. As long as the crossbow is assigned first an infinite amount of equipment can be carried with both hands and the Dwarf will still operate the crossbow. One of my Marksdwarves at any given time will be carrying a crossbow, shield and melee weapon. At the same time. Works fine.

[Azure]

I Used to do this with my haulers all the time it's pretty solid if you rely on them to stop sieges. They'll get train up fairly quickly. It has a couple MAJOR problems though.

• Motivated Dwarves. Motivated dwarves will occasionally do indiv. combat drill which will cut into the amount of time they'll doing their job.This cripples any plan trainins doctors/jewelers/traders/trainers/etc.
• Fortifications. They're the bread and butter of any competent defense... And they req Marks 7 to fire through reliably...
• Ammo use. 500-750 bolts per 10 dwarf squad per engagement is pretty much a minimum if you don't want to risk them running out. This'll be a bitch on your fps.
• Gather's go to axedwarf squads thanks to wood cutting and miners to a pick squad. Hunters shouldn't be used due to risk of death anyway. Manual hunt DAT ASS.
• Even if your jeweler does get armored he may decide to be An Hero and take on a squad of goblins before the prof. soldiers arrive.

A note on the Mass xbow defense. It DOES work when there's ~40ish+ on a platform spewing death,but  it falls apart as soon as they empty that first quiver or one goblin gets into melee range. Stick to grouping unmotivated haulers[!!NOT FOOD!!]/processors/furnace ops/ by type and have 2-3 train per month  to keep rust off. That'll work fine as a light reinforcement unit. Shift legends into a hammer crosstraining squad then shift back to xbow. Put dwarves with increased healing and disease resistance into further crosstraining sqauds to make a spec. ops. unit.

wuphonsreach brings up a good point as well. Deck them out fully and they'll be eating a massive movement penalty, or leave them in lighter gear that master gobs will puncture.

I think bucklers are the only shield that works with crossbows.

Shield works fine iirc, just slows your hobo's down more.

[wuphonsreach]

Stories from the field.  I have my pop-cap set in the init file fairly low at the start of my forts (20, then 30, then 40) so I only have around 35 dwarves and the goblins are doing non-stop ambushes.  I think the elven traders have been butchered 3 years in a row because the Depot is still outside the main trapped area.

Hamlet Alathorrun ("Boltsroars") is thus a sleepy little dwarven outpost with a set of trap-lined catwalks as a welcome mat over a 10-12Z deep pit.  Then a set of drawbridges which open up to connect to the catwalks.

Spring 1054, the goblins attacked again and caught us napping.  A few dwarves were hauling wood and got caught in the open, the elves were running scared, and I decided to station the 2 1/2 squads of militia just inside the drawbridges overlooking the traps.  They started peppering the goblins with wood/bone bolts as they came around the corner and things looked like it was going (mostly) to plan.

Of course, as soon as they used up their 25 bolts, they switch into hammer-time and run *out* to play with the goblins.  Including the goblins who were beating up on the elven traders a good 30-40 tiles away from the trapped catwalks.  Which then resulted in us discovering another ambush squad of goblins sneaking around.  It got ugly.

Amazingly, I only lost 3 dwarves in all that.  A ranger died early, but I also lost the weaponsmith (who was middle-high skill level).  Four dwarves were severely wounded and I had to scramble to get soap made and a hospital setup.  All four survived, but the backup cook is now crawling around the fort at a slow pace because he's lost the ability to stand.

I'm still convinced this is a good idea, but mostly as fighting a rear-guard action while they run towards the military alert burrows.  I don't send them out with a station order now until all the goblins have either fallen down into the pit or have been softened up by the weapon traps.  Even then, I only turn off the military alert, which releases them from the burrow.  As they run out to pickup new socks from the fallen invaders, they start shooting at any surviving / unconscious / heavily wounded invaders who are still trying to escape the pit.

I'm hoping to setup archery targets (on catwalks above the trapped catwalks) and fortifications on the walls sometime in the next few seasons.  Then I can send them up into the battlements and lock them in so they can't go into hammer-mode.

[darkflagrance]

I personally go with pillboxes or courtyard traps. I lure the goblins down long passageways or into box-like courtyards where behind the walls are ammo stockpiles. As the goblins enter, I park melee soldiers blocking the exit and around a corner so that the soldiers don't charge. Meanwhile, I hustle in the militia around the fortification walls so that they can begin shooting at the goblins. An alternative to fortifications are walkways 1 z-level up that allow for leisurely sniping of random goblins while the main melee units hold them in the killing area.

[Panando]

I Used to do this with my haulers all the time it's pretty solid if you rely on them to stop sieges. They'll get train up fairly quickly. It has a couple MAJOR problems though.

• Motivated Dwarves. Motivated dwarves will occasionally do indiv. combat drill which will cut into the amount of time they'll doing their job.This cripples any plan trainins doctors/jewelers/traders/trainers/etc.

Don't assign them a barracks or archery range. That's my solution, and it works great. And keep permanently inactive, they activate automatically when given a station or kill order, and deactivate once the order is cancelled or completed.

[wuphonsreach]

You can get away with assigning archery ranges, but only assign 1 target to each squad of 10 dwarves.  Since the archery targets are single-use, you'll only have 10% of your dwarves doing target practice at any point in time.

Assigning barracks for training is a thornier issue, but I've only ever see 3-4 dwarves at most in there doing individual combat drills, and I have (4) ten-dwarf squads of militia.