-- The Non-nudists Approach to Disarming Slaves --
This isolates particular items on your prisoners, instead of leaving them wimpy and naked. I perform this ritual before every execution, when my prisoners are all in one cage, but you could to it as easily with a stockpile of cages. We'll use hide because only you can flag items as hidden. It can be quite confusing to sort out which items are forbidden or dumped and when and where they were designated.
*stocks and bookkeepers: I'm not sure how bookkeeper accuracy works, but I haven't missed any weapons yet and my bookkeeper is only at high precision.
**Achiles Heel method: Instead of removing weapons remove their footwear. If your dwarves are armed with wooden weapons it may take several lucky hits to cripple their opponents.
1. d-b-c, to claim everything in the cage(s)
2. d-b-h, to hide the cage and it's contents (oh no, the cage disappeared... It's still there, no worries)
3. z, stocks*, weapons**, tab, d any item marked h
4. d-b-H, to make the cage visible for your own sanity, because your dwarves don't care either way...
Source:
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/DF2010_Talk:Captured_creatures#ixzz0vguaBCqGOnce that is done I send in my dwarves with heavy metal armor, and training weapons only.
A note about training: Dwarves only seem to level up if they're facing an opponent with a weapon. Your opponents will use shields as weapons. And a warning: A goblin can become very handy very quickly with only a shield.