Thanks for the information! I'll have to digest it a while...
I'm suspicious of xbows being fired ballistically, though. You say "Could be fired ballistically." Was there any evidence that they were or weren't? Of course they could be, but with a bow, you pull back the string and kind of have a feel for that arc, as a function of your draw and angle. Firing a crossbow ballistically is like firing a handgun ballistically - possible, but never done (aside from corrections of a few feet of drop, generally calculated by the scope) since you only have control over a single factor, angle. At least, that's how it would seem to me...
I'm particularly surprised at the terrible arrowodynamics (get it? A pun!). This might be mitigated a bit by firing in high arcs, thus storing some energy as potential (immune to drag) for much of the flight, as opposed to firing flat, where the energy is always kinetic (and thus vulnerable to energy loss from drag, proportional to v^2 IIRC).
Anyway, I'll muse over this new stuff... chew on it like cud... maybe build my own longbow out of balsa wood and piano wire, and extrapolate from there...
By the way, Wombats - the combat simulator has the att/def roll bug fixed now
Thanks for noting the problem!