Villagers leave Their Weapons and shields in chests and have to arm them manually

[TheLastOfTheMohicans (JAC)]

I might be doing something wrong but every time w get attacked several of my villagers just drop their weapons and shields and when we get a message of a raid I have to arm them manually. Is there any other way to automatically arm them with their weapons?
Right now i have 16 villagers and in this last raid I wasn't able to arm them all.

Also, if the villagers do have their weapons and shield with them, they might use a tool with lower combat rating to fight, including using a hammer, that is not for combat.

[jokers27]

Lot of post about this. They drop weapon to use tool.

[Gwen]

They remove tools, they do not remove weapons that are in slot 2. They are going to remove bows and shields that are in slot 3 when they need to use the shovel or hoe. And yes before a raid you may have to put back the shield and bows in slot 3.

[Onibaku]

Originally posted by Gwen:

They remove tools, they do not remove weapons that are in slot 2. They are going to remove bows and shields that are in slot 3 when they need to use the shovel or hoe. And yes before a raid you may have to put back the shield and bows in slot 3.

If you want to pretty much ensure that they keep the bow/shield, don't use people that use hoes or shovels as guards. Make these people dedicated villagers.

[Zalzany]

Sigh make stockpile put shields, bows, what ever weapon wise inside. Summon army, hit E on the stockpile they no grab best in slot weapon they can use, based on their role in army, you can make them archer or not in there as well. If you got a big squad they kind cluster up and get in eachothers way making it more tedious but it works. They also drop any junk they were carring whiel working like sticks, hide, and what not into the stockpile.

Only thing they don't see to do is eat from it sigh... I just round up sheilds every now and then I got my stockpile armory set as its own camp so they don't touch it though. You could in theory make all storage band weapons and sheilds and but that one you want and they would actually eventually return all the gear to the armory stockpile.