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[PatrikLundell]

I've been trying to equip my dorfs with basic equipment by assigning them to squads (excluding miners, woodcutters, and non existent hunters due to uniform conflicting) and then giving them uniforms, but despite this, and despite there being gear in the stockpile, they just run around half equipped. I have finally been able to get enough leather to produce leather High boots to almost everyone, but most don't equip them.
I'm trying to satisfy the buggers' insatiable craving for clothing, but it's hard. Theoretically, my fort of 41 dwarves should require 205 pieces of clothing per year (2 years to wear them down one step, and 10 (actually 9, since caps interfere with helmets) pieces of clothing, and I think I'm a fair bit above 200 pigtails a year, yet my clothing stocks are basically empty.

I've tried a few different strategies:
1. My intended "fighting" force of male masons: Replacement uniform, complete with clothing (shoes, socks, etc). Still, after a couple of years, one of them is still walking round with one naked foot. Do the buggers refuse to pick up boots unless the lower clothing layers have also been picked up?
2. The first general male squad: Over clothing uniform, complete with clothing. Not much luck there either.
3. Over clothing uniform consisting of only the military items (Bone Helmet, Bone Gauntlets, Leather Armor, Bone Greaves, High Leather Boots). Most are bootless.

None of the strategies work well. Should I just give up civilian clothing and trying to do things "properly", and just go for a completely military replacement outfit?
My attempts to get the buggers to dump their blasted caps fail, despite having tried to order them to be both dumped and forbidden at various times. The only way to get rid of them seems to be a replacement uniform (or wait until they rot off, which shouldn't be too long now). Is there a working way to get rid of this obstruction to helmets?

It can be noted that trying to upgrade a uniform template and then apply it to most of the dorfs is catastrophic: They dump everything in the uniform (including the items that were the same), and then look at the near empty stockpile to piece together the new one. At the rate they pick up and restock dumped clothing, they'll be mostly naked for years.

What I really want to achieve is to provide the dorfs with basic armor and basic weapons to have at least a little chance to survive and run away when hostiles attack them, even though they haven't received any training at all. I also want to be able to "draft" them when some wildlife needs to be removed, or kobolds chased away.

[Foxite]

I think it is because since 0.40.x high boots are marked as "foreign" because dwarves don't actually have knees in the raws, so if you have leggings(or a chainmail) you don't actually need the extra leg protection from the high boots. High boots are essentially low boots that also cover the lower legs, which isn't needed since you (usually) have leggings too.

I have the same problem though, although somewhat different. Some of my marksdwarves appear to only be equipping about half of their leather armor, despite every soldier having all parts of their uniform available and assigned to them. And at least one of my swordsdwarves is carrying a wooden sword even though I explicitly assigned iron swords to the sword squad, and each soldier of all squad having their weapons available to them(although not all armor pieces). Some dwarves may also be having wooden shields despite each of them having iron shields assigned.

[PatrikLundell]

I thought layering meant that you would benefit from overlapping equipment, especially if they have different properties vs different kinds of damage.

When it comes to using the wrong equipment, I had specified steel equipment for a squad, but they still dumped their steel gear to steal the adamantine one designated for my elite squad, but that's them upgrading illegally, not downgrading (or failing to upgrade) as in your case.
I didn't bother with specifying exact match in that case, but that might help your case.

[Ives]

You're better off replacing gear altogether. I'm pretty sure that even if you manage to outfit your dorfs "properly", Urist McReservist just might decide he needs a new pair of socks some months later. I suppose you can try outfitting them with armor that doesn't conflict with clothing, but that will leave some parts of the body vulnerable. Also heavy armor is going to be a serious hindrance to your average hauler. Furthermore, without at least some military training you won't see that much difference in civvie survival rates, in fact extra the weight might make getting away even more difficult.

As for dorfs taking gear they aren't supposed to take, toggle "partial matches" to "exact matches" and be more specific with gear assignments (steel breastplates versus simply metal breastplates). Bone armor doesn't have an entry in material list, but you can go around that by telling them to only equip white armor.

I'm trying to satisfy the buggers' insatiable craving for clothing, but it's hard.

That's easy to deal with, only make upper and lower body clothing and boots, the unhappy thought from wearing tattered clothing is pretty mild as long as their privates are covered. Also you can request every type of leather available from your liason for one year, that'll supply you with over a thousand units of leather to make clothes with.

You should definitely fix the "running around with a single boot issue" though. You don't want them stepping into anything nasty.

[Mechanixm]

You can get a dwarf to dump all of the clothing he is wearing from the military screen.

Just set his uniform to have no items in it and make sure you've selected Replace clothing.  Unpause and watch your dwarf drop all of his clothing or take it to his room.  Once he's naked, assign him specific armor to wear.

[PatrikLundell]

@Mechanixm: Well, getting them to drop all their stuff is easy, but then they'll take a few months before they pick up the new gear, especially if they were wearing parts of said gear. Getting them to drop only the offensive cap has been unsuccessful, however.

@Ives: I apologize for being unclear: I'm trying to satisfy the dorfs' clothing cravings natively. Using caravans make it easy, that's true. I AM trying to fix the barefoot issue, but I'm not too successful when trying to do it "properly". Looks like the military gear only strategy has to be used.

[Ives]

@Mechanixm: Well, getting them to drop all their stuff is easy, but then they'll take a few months before they pick up the new gear, especially if they were wearing parts of said gear. Getting them to drop only the offensive cap has been unsuccessful, however.

It's probably because they get distracted by all the active labors. Military dorfs change gear rather fast. Try drafting them until their gear is in order.

@Ives: I apologize for being unclear: I'm trying to satisfy the dorfs' clothing cravings natively. Using caravans make it easy, that's true. I AM trying to fix the barefoot issue, but I'm not too successful when trying to do it "properly". Looks like the military gear only strategy has to be used.

Well, if you want to avoid trading for leather and cloth, the only sensible option is to just make bare essentials, until your industry catches up.  My fort's been going strong for 17 years now and I've barely made more clothes than pants, coats and shoes. You also don't absolutely have to replace them right when they become x(worn)x, in fact the biggest reason I avoid making extra clothes (I have 20 legendary growers, and the map is full of cave spider silk, so production isn't an issue) is because I don't want to deal with all the dirty laundry.

As for civilian gear, again you really only have 2 sensible choices - partial uniform, where you only add gear that won't conflict with clothes (gauntlets, breastplates, mailshirts and shields), or full replacement uniform. If you're going for full replacement you still might want to avoid equipping them with both clothes and armor, although I think dorfs will be a lot smarter if they know exactly what to wear.