I haven't tested this yet.., and figured someone else has. So why waste my caps and mats, you know? I know you can equip items on companions, but do they use the stats on them?

Thanks.

No way of really knowing the stats, but I can tell it helps. They don't get hurt as often when geared up.

I gave strong a non-automatic pipe rifle, but when he fired it it was automatic. Not complaining, just an observation.
Remember to equip stuff by pressing 'T'. Dog meat in dog armour looks awesome
I would suggest a mod or fix where anything equipt by the companion can't be removed by pressing the 'take all' button/key. It's kinda frustrating when you strip them & have to re-assign, or manually remove things.

As I've been seeing on the forum, the armor helps, weapons not unless they got the bullets for them and they run out of them quick. I just been using the mutt so far.

It's funny, the strategy guide also specifically says that if you give a companion a new weapon you have to give him ammo for it. But yesterday I gave MacReady a modded-up pipe rifle with 1000 rounds of .38. Two hours and many firefights later he still had 996 rounds.

I've given up trying to figure it out.