I'm trying to set up a "civilian defense program" correctly. My conclusion so far is that I need to divide dwarfs into following castes:
1) Females don't get danger room training or "recover wounded" jobs. They get some armor and crossbows. I assign them bone and wooden bolts for training, not metal. During sieges they rain bolts on enemies trying to get through traps. Some ranged training on captured goblins behind fortifications is ok too.
2) Important males (legendary crafters, doctors usefull nobles, and the like) are in squads set to inactive all the time. They don't have "recover wounded", "haul wood", and whatever else might get them into trouble. They have some hauling jobs, but mostly do their main job, and train during some breaks. Same goes for important females.
3) Males with no important skills get full DR training, and melee weapons. They are set to train untill multiple +5 legendaries and double up as haulers. They also all have jobs that don't influence quality, like furnance operator, milker, ets. My problem is, multiple +5 soldiers seem to get their civilian jobs disabled. These guys get the best equipment and are sent to combat first.
4) Maybe I should keep miners, woodcutters and hunters out of the military, to avoid "equipment mismatch" spam but I didn't have much trouble with that.
Proportions of military to civlians should resolve themselves.
Cons:
Lots of equipment needed.
Lots of micromanagement.
Some unhappiness.
Pros:
Everyone has a chance to defend from minor threats.
Dwarfs train rather than idle.
Armor replacing cloth gives them better survivability, so random hauler won't die from DR spears when hauling away cat corpse.