Why are offduty military training in civ clothing?

Question

My military schedule is 2 months Training and then 1 month offduty. I have the uniform option on the schedule set such that they would always be in Uniform, since I want them to have their armor on whenever a threat shows up.

There are a couple squads that are offduty, but are in the barracks doing individual combat drills in their civilian clothing. The XBow dwarves in particular are not shooting bolts while training. Just standing there doing ind. combat drills.

1) Why are they in their civilian clothing when I has the schedule set to be always uniformed?

2) Why are they doing individual combat drills while inactive?

I verified that the alerts have the squads set to me training alert, and that they have no active orders.

Answer 1

I can't answer your first question confidently, but I do have a few suggestions. This might be a stupid question, but -- do you have enough armor for them to wear as a uniform in the first place? Uniforms are often worn over clothing anyway (that might even be the default), are you sure they're simply not wearing their uniforms over their civilian clothes? (Scroll to the end of their inventory to find their armor and weapons, usually).

Your second question is easier to answer: Dwarves in your militia will, when they would otherwise idle, may instead go to their barracks and perform indiv. combat drills, even when inactive. This isn't nearly as good as active training (especially since indiv. combat drills never involves sparring), but it is usually preferable to your dwarves lounging about, socializing, and making friends.