Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-30830745-20180225111723/@comment-26298013-20180225212706

I mean, yes, it would be "standard issue", if the Orcs of the Misties had the capability to produce such things, and, indeed, if such a bow could punch through Dwarf-mail.

And it's not a matter of negating it, so much as it is providing a means to counter it given the right conditions. Mail is relatively poor against armor-piercing missile weapons (i.e., those purpose-built to break open individual rings and kill you through the gap, like bodkin arrows). Dwarf-mail, however, is abnormally strong, perhaps it is entirely welded and/or made of a steel alloy unknown to the other peoples.

As for whether crossbows make sense...if you have the know-how to make one and need to equip a large or merely an army of people who have not trained with longbows from an early age, then they're OK. I don't think they could pierce dwarf-mail, though, because it takes a LOT of force to break a neck, ESPECIALLY a Dwarven neck (dwarves are a stoutly-built people with abnormally tough EVERYTHING), yet the mail in my example held. So, you'd need a ridiculously powerful crossbow, probably powerful enough that it doesn't work, because the bolt shatters into shards on impact instead of focusing on the energy through the tip.

So, in short, no, crossbows probably don't make sense for Uruks or Orcs (Orcs don't have the know-how to produce them, Uruks don't have the need), though maybe they would make more sense for some factions of Men that don't have well-trained armies (and no use for the bow under non-warfare conditions).