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[Sutremaine]

I like swords. My current military is mostly swords backed by a minority of axedwarves, and all of them are steel-clad with blue weapons. In future I might mix it up with a squad of speardwarves, since a steel spear will slide through any armour enemies bring. Mods would change that, but there's almost always enough blue stuff safely available for weapons.

Civilians are all armed with crossbows, copper shields, salvaged large daggers which they might or might not be smart enough to use in melee, and a mix of steel and leather. They train when there's nothing else to do and I have the bolts available. Until I caught a bronze colossus and modded it to heal up, this was done with archery targets assigned for each squad. They'd train in their off-time, and then I'd turn the targets to face the wall when I wanted other things done.

[UristMcHuman]

I never have a fort last longer than approx. mid summer. If I did get a military, I would have two types:

Full trained military: Ironclad swordsmen, spearmen, copper-armored crossbowman skirmishers, steel-clad knights with steel battle- or war-axes, paladins with bismuth bronze armor and silver war hammers, OR

Militia: Woodcutters train as axemen, crossbowmen hunt, miners use picks or mattocks as military weapons, other weapons such as large daggers are salvaged from thieves. Armor for crossbowmen is nothing more than their clothes, other units get leather armor.

Although I will salvage large daggers and other weapons in vanilla DF, I use the Civ Forge mod in 31.24, where I can make the large daggers and some other weapons.

[Person]

Don't underestimate war bears or war elephants. It's glorious. We just need animal armor or something.
I prefer a good mix of crossbows, axes, and hammers, with the occasional spear. Spam bolts, send in the melee to take down the rest. Bolt spam is pretty much necessary in fortress defense unless you have loads of good metal, and soldiers. Dogs can wound goblins by the way, because they don't seem to like wearing full suits of armor, so they end up getting bit in the leg if they don't dodge. Try picking animals that have descriptors like "He is enormous, with Large muscles", or however it says. I do mostly try to salvage weapons early on if I can't get a good migrant smith.

[flieroflight]

im planning a new type of military in my fort, 5 5 man squads, one sword, one axe, one spear, one mace, one hammer and one 5 man guard also on hammers. all in full plate gear.

[RAKninja]

Don't underestimate war bears or war elephants. It's glorious.

i wish war trolls were as good.  perhaps ogres will be...

[malimbar04]

I'm a fan of swords for aesthetics, and generally give them basic training  with a danger room. They then receive advanced training via caged goblins and animals. When capable, I like to make all their clothes dyed a single color scheme as well. I tend to use blue pig tail fiber for availability, but green pig tail is popular as well. Unfortunately i understand silver barb (for black dye) doesn't exist in 31.25, so i have to make due. It would be so cool to have sword dwarves wearing black robes though...

My favorite dwarves are actually the ones that get injured in war, and if they are able to get around with a crutch  I often give them the best armor and weapons and force them to train harder. "no retirement for you!".

[ledgekindred]

I usually have a small squad each of hammer, axe and spear dwarves.  5-6 in each squad.  Then two 10-dwarf squads of marksdwarves.  The marksdwarves crosstrain in melee just to give them something to do.  When they are off-duty they are assigned to be hunters. 

I have fortifications carved in the walls in front of the fortress with a raising bridge in front of them.  I can station my dwarves in the "sniper" burrow without them getting shot at themselves.  Meanwhile if there are bowgoblins, I wait for them to waste as much ammo as possible shooting up the animals I keep penned in front of the fort.  Then when I'm ready, I drop the bridges, everyone opens fire.  20 marksdwarves all opening fire, even untrained ones, will scythe through a good chunk of any siege.  Then out come the melee to mop up.  By the time melee comes out, the siege is probably panicking and doesn't put up much of a fight. 

I have a large, walled and gated courtyard around my fort's front entrance, so once I trap a siege in there, they are already dead, they just don't know it yet.

[Berserkenstein]

Peasant armada, all with pet kittens.

[UristMcHuman]

Peasant armada

'Armada' is Spanish for 'Navy'. Unless you can teach those peasants to swim, and force them to fight in the water, then an armada is non-existant.

all with pet kittens.

Why with kittens? Kittens are goblin bait. Not military pets.

[Number4]

My favorite military? Probably the Wehrmacht.
A good mixture of every different weapon is good. Shields and heavy armor also good. "Civilian" dwarves are crossbow-militia.

[Shootandrun]

I've always got 20 axedorfs, 10 hammerdorfs and 10 crossbowdorfs after my population start rising. Spears and swords are no weapons for dwarves.

When I'm at high population (more than 100) I start giving my civilians weapons and armor and let them train when they are idle. When my fortresses last 15+ years, all the dwarves are generally steel clad and legendary.