Slings and slingshots!

[Xio]

Besides slings dealing a heavy amount of force and such in their own right. I know some slings used for war were also attached to poles, to increase velocity. Usually referred to as staff slings. They are much stronger than the normal sling and offer a greater range (Not to mention that normal slings have a greater range than longbows used back in older times) and can be used with heavier ammunition. Only downside is that it requires two hands so a slinger wouldn't be able to use a shield at the same time, but the staff doubles as a weapon in close quarters. Also I'd like to mention that staff slings have atleast the same accuracy as normal slings, if not better, when used properly.

[Qzzrbl]

Huh.... Apparently darts can be launched from slingshots too?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwdZsraz_I4&feature=related

[Bilanthri]

I'm not a physicist but I imagine that firing an arrow on a steep angle like that it's going to pick up a lot more speed falling back to the ground than it would if you fired it in a straight line, unless you were fairly close.

That isn't really correct.  The energy imparted by falling will never be greater than the energy it took to shoot it up in the first place, plus you'll lose a little energy from air resistance. 

The advantage of shooting up is that you get longer range.  The arrow will drop a certain distance for every unit of flight time.  If you shoot it level, your range is limited by how far it can go before it drops all the way to the ground.  Shooting at a higher angle (within reason) increases the available drop distance far more than it lengthens the trajectory to the target.

I've never seen the volley tactic done used on Zalanthas however and there's obviously no way to codedly do it either.

There are units of archers, but AFAIK they can only be targeted at a single gemmer at once.

At 45 degrees, your projectile will reach it's maximum range, regardless of the method for firing. Aside from a need to hit targets at maximum range, the biggest reason that ancient archer squads fired at 45 degrees or greater was so a volley of arrows could be placed indirectly among a group of soldiers. By using indirect fire (lobbing) a group of archers could avoid the problem of having all their arrows hit the front line, literally overkilling and wasting arrows. This also allowed archers to stand in ranks and still all fire in unison. Also, using a spotter, archers could employ this tactic to fire volleys over fortifications into attacking ranks (See Battle of Helm's Deep).

As for the damage capability of slings vs bows/crossbows, the physics behind the force is what matters. Bullets, both the sling and firearm variety, function on blunt force trauma and the effects of hydrostatic shock. The projectile literally crushes its way through the flesh, imparting a great deal of kinetic energy on a cellular level. A bullet that stops inside a body will cause far more damage than one that passes through because all the energy was channeled into the (incompressible) fluids of the flesh, rupturing cell membranes and causing standard injury shock. <= very deadly

Pointed projectiles, on the other hand, require far less kinetic energy, which is why they tend to be lighter than a comparably damaging sling stone. The energy here is used to enforce the separating of flesh, rather than crushing, and the majority of the damage from an arrow comes from the channel it creates into which the target will then bleed profusely.

I agree that sling stones should do more stun than arrows, as shock tends to drop things faster than bleeding, with far less apparent damage (without medical attention, a broken arm can result in shock and lead to death as the body begins failing). There are a lot of specific factors that would be a bit over the top to implement, but, realistically, both projectiles are equally deadly.