Quote Originally Posted by discovery1
Actually, I would say that at Gaugamela the Persians had the batter cavalry forces, but they were poorly lead and failed to support their fellow Persians(a large chunk of them ran off to alex's camp to save darius' family). SO yes there is a counter to it:more/better cavalry.
Before the battle the Persian cavalry was considered superior. It hadn't been defeated directly yet (at Grannicus it had been local forces and at Issus they had been at the other flank). But at Gaugamela the cream had faced Alexander personally and had been routed savagely.
The troops on the other flank had squared off with Pamenion's Thessalians and few Companions and had been checked despite a massive advantage in numbers (they would have won eventually though).
The troops that had gone off to the camp were the less than stellar Indian cavalry, in fact the right troops to use for such an adventure (but in this particular battle it had been better if they had attacked the Macedonian rear).

It is the fact that Alexander attacked a numerically superior force of elite cavalry with his own cavalry and managed to not only rout them, but really handed them their asses, then disentagled himself to attack a fwe more cavalry, then do the same and attack some infantry ect ect until he reached where Darius was. That is what makes Gaugamela and the Companions so great. They were apparently unstoppable. And this was despite the fact that Daruis was actually doing everything right (picking the best terrain for his larger army, levelling the ground for elephants and chariots, fanning out to encircle Alexander, pitting his best troops against Alexander himself while overwhelming the other flank with numbers, it should have worked).