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[callisto8413]

I always thought the dwarfs could use crossbows but not bows.  But I notice a few of my militia, not just the humans and the elfs, using bows.  Has this changed or is it something the mods are doing?

[Ulfarr]

I don't know if anything changed in v50+ but up to 47.05 dwarves could use bows if you got any somehow. The problem was that without any mods, the dwarves didn't know how to make arrows so you had to either import them through caravans or loot them from dead enemies.

(and then even if you somehow solved the arrow supply problem you had to deal with how ammo was assigned to hunters/marksdwarves...)

[callisto8413]

I don't know if anything changed in v50+ but up to 47.05 dwarves could use bows if you got any somehow. The problem was that without any mods, the dwarves didn't know how to make arrows so you had to either import them through caravans or loot them from dead enemies.

(and then even if you somehow solved the arrow supply problem you had to deal with how ammo was assigned to hunters/marksdwarves...)

I did buy some arrows for the elf bow users in my militia.  I never have before so this is likely why I just noticed.  Thank you VERY much. 

Oh, are bows better or just the same when compared to crossbows? 

[Tomsod]

In theory, the only difference is using them in melee (crossbows are treated as ineffectual hammers, while bows are very ineffectual swords).  Assuming same quality and material, bows shooting arrows are mechanically equal to crossbows shooting bolts.  In practice, you can't get steel and/or masterwork arrows, so bolts are better.

[eerr]

if you want to kill a bronze colossus in the arena, a big supply of adamantine arrows will do it, but adamantine bolts will not. Lesser materials do nothing.

[Tomsod]

I actually got curious about it and just managed to kill a colossus in 75 masterwork steel bolts.  It's not that it's super-armored -- bronze makes average armor -- it's the fact that bolts largely rely on "critical hits" to vital parts that disable the target in some way, and BC has no weak spots and doesn't even feel pain!  I did manage to break its leg rather quickly so it fell down, but after that it just got more broken until eventually the upper body got pulped.
Anyway, I'm 100% sure that masterwork steel arrows would perform equally (if they were possible) -- it's all determined by the raws, and the numbers are the same.

[anewaname]

There used to be a bug when a dwarf equipped a bow but there were no arrows in the fort. They would stand over some bolts, attempting to put them in a quiver and failing, then repeating.