Bards can use club, dagger, dart, javelin, sling, scimitar, spear, sword (bastard, long, or short), and staff and wear leather or magical chain but cannot use shields. (Pretty restrictive, actually.)
They could specialize in a weapon and maybe even double-specialize while they are fighters, though, to raise their attacking speed and damage...
THAC0 for a 39th level fighter in 1e would be 4 compared to 14 for a bard (staying at the THAC0 of a 7th level fighter), or considerably better. In fact, THAC0 may be the biggest weakness for the bard - only a maximum-level assassin (also THAC0 14) is as bad (but specialization would help).
As for rangers, 1e rangers definitely are the way to go
(Specialization, double specialization, druid spells, magic-user spells, and lots of damage on most humanoids is great!)