Well they are weak points. The trick is to stop the enemy horse/elephant so you actually can cut legs/hamstrings. Some soldiers did also soear the bellies of the horses IIRC.

The infantry formation has to stop the cavalry. If anything goes wrong (especially soldiers starting to panic) and the formation falls apart then the cavalry will simply ride through and over everything. A god cavalry charge would basically be knee to knee.. a one big wall of horses and there is no where for you to hide if you dont stop them.

Combined arms is one thing, training and confidence is another thing. Good weapons doesnt matter if the soldiers panic or simply doesnt have time enough to move together in the typically very dense anti-cav formation. The spear(or pike)/polearm combination proved several times to be very good against cavalry. The long pointy sticks to stop the cavalry and polearms to move in and chop up men and horses.


CBR