Quote Originally Posted by bobbin View Post
The main problem with this view is that horses will, under no circumstances, charge headlong into well ordered infantry. Try getting a horse to run into a brick wall, no matter how much you try to train it to, it will never happen.
Cavalry charges in any era relied on exploiting gaps in infantry formations, these could be formed by soldiers breaking formation out of fear or impetuousness or by showering them with missiles forcing them to break up or spread out (the tactic commonly used by the parthians).

Also as far as I am aware there were no couched lances in EB's timeframe, I recall a mention of some parthian cataphracts having their kontos's chained to the horse but that is all.
Well at least medieval history prooves you wrong. Knights (at least in the late)medievial times used to atack headlong in a tight formation.(Thats why their fighting power decreased against pikes, guns etc.) and the cavallery in later times charged against dense musket fire. No modern horse would charge against that eather. ;)
The thing is that war horses were trained different and in medieval times sometimes they used somethng to cover the eyes of the horse so that it couldnt se much of the enemy.

Anyway, if we are speaking of the cavallery in EBs timeframe, I would agree with you that head long charging might have been nothing of strategical values. Although at magnesia the seleucs seemed to have succes with it. On the other hand: No spurs, no saddle, no way of stabilising your lance....^^ Even if the horses woud charge against the enemy it doesnt seem likely that they had an impact like knights had

PS: You can disagree about everything in my post, but not medieval knights charging straight on. With heavy protection, helmets blocking your side, no way of communicating and next to no modern military drill, it wasnt possible to make quick turns or maneuvers so they had to atack that way.