@jrtoken As a followup, I equipped all settlers with 10 rounds and found that it works for the most part. On the rare occasion they run out of rounds and I have to re-equip them. Your provisioners are invulnerable so you can equip them with whatever and they will be fine. Other than that I've found that if you don't start the Cabot House missions you can continually raid the insane asylum in the northeast for an unlimited amount of .45 ammo and combat rifles. This unlimited ammo source combined with the combat rifle you purchase from one of the vaults will make you most formidable.

So I have Googled and searched the far reaches of the intranets looking for an answer to my query. Do settlers use ammo like companions? My initial searches found that most people said to place one (1) round in said settlers inventory and they would the be able to fire without limit. This seemed silly but made sense because in all honesty who wants to manage 100 different inventories. I have found in reality that settlers with one (1) round end up firing one (1) round and then running out of ammo, then of course they must strike with hands or a melee weapon that they may or may not have, with marginal results. So i suppose this statement is more to set the record straight, you must equip all settlers with enough ammo to sustain themselves, all settlers, every last one. So stick with turrets for your real defensive needs.

On a side note, its curious how the rumor became widespread knowledge, almost like it might be a glitch. Here's hoping it is ;)

I agree, huge wait times at the end turn mark, and I'm still early in the game. And I had the same issues with empire, Towards the end I couldnt fight any more battles becasue the game would start snailing around, and then crash :(