Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-30830745-20180225111723/@comment-26149161-20180228024216

Glflegolas wrote: Crossbows do have one advantage. They're slower to fire than a longbow, but it's a lot faster to train a crossbower than an archer, therefore they wouldn't be the elite of Saruman's army, and Saruman wanted to build as big an army as possible as quickly as possible. Saruman might very well have had crossbows, and not sent them to capture Boromir in the books (since he used his elite units for that). Tolkien does mention darts in the books, in this quote:

"But the Orcs laughed with loud voices; and a hail of darts and arrows whistled over the wall […]. "

So the presence of crossbow bolts (and therefore crossbows) can't be entirely be ruled out in Isengard's army. I'd think that the Uruk-hai would've been much more likely to use crossbowers than blowgunners in any sense.

Glflegolas (admin) Send a Messenger  00:44, February 28, 2018 (UTC) Tolkien does refer consistently to arrows as "darts" interchangably. I think we can guess he was simply being poetic here.

"‘I drew it forth,’ said Imrahil, ‘and staunched the wound. But I did not keep the arrow, for we had much to do. It was, as I remember, just such a dart as the Southrons use. Yet I believed that it came from the Shadows above, for else his fever and sickness were not to be understood; since the wound was not deep or vital. How then do you read the matter?’"

Ithilion, Discussions Moderator (Auta i lómë)