I think the way it doesn't make sense is one of those textbook instances in which their embellishments combine with their efforts to follow the source material to produce something which makes no sense. In the novel they're mostly unarmed and have to run, with only Thorin and Gandalf occasionally turning at bay to cut down their enemies. Yet when we have characters like Dwalin and Glóin rocking up with about fifteen axes, swords and, ugh! hammers (this isn't some Tolkien knock-off, this is the real deal, why are the Dwarves fighting with hammers raaaar!) apiece stowed in endless lengths of leather straps and bandoliers out of a modern Hollywood Fantasy nightmare it becomes very hard to believe why they're always running all over the place. The Dwarves are made to look rather foolishly ill-prepared on several occasions in the novel and it doesn't really sit very easily with the more "serious" (ie more violent) depiction many of them are given in the film.
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Originally Posted by Ulvenok
They are 13 dwarves and managed to escape goblin town while being surrounded and hunted by what seems at least to be one hundred goblins. Yet when they are earlier in the movie hunted by like 15 orcs on wargs they all run away.
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Quite so! One of the many reasons I thought that made-up hunt on the way to Rivendell was an unwise addition. So often PJ, Boyens and Walsh make stuff up which sits uneasily with source material elements which they then also include.
Given that many of the members of Thorin and Co. had fought in the War of the Dwarves and Orcs I'd argue that they were more battle-hardened than Gimli but given that so few of them have weapons for the majority of
The Hobbit (in the original text at least) it seems to me that it's a bit hard to say.