All right. I'm no expert and I'll certainly admit to being wrong, but if this is the case, why were heavy cavalry the dominant force on the battlefield for a hundreds of years, if stopping them were simply standing together in dense formation? In fact, couldn't you just lie on the ground packed tightly together so the horses wouldn't even try to gallop over you?
There seems to be an incongruity here. If you could stop a full cavalry charge with something as small as a musket, then why were pikemen specifically developed to fight cavalry?
I know for a fact that longer weapons were used to fight cavalry because shorter ones were ineffective for some reason.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikemen seems to suggest that shorter weapons were ineffective.
Now you could be right, of course. But then it would seem that for thousands of years of history, people were too stupid to stand tightly together. Which also doesn't make sense because they did that, and often.
I'm puzzled. I don't know whether you are right that it is impossible for cavalry to charge into densely packed people with short weapons or not. There seems to be evidence for both sides. I'm not convinced either way.
Please don't think me dumb. I just don't always accept what I am told at face value. I have to weigh everything I've ever been taught about medieval history, which states that heavy cavalry was nigh invincible on the battlefield unti they re-invented the phalanx, which had been rarely used since the days of the Roman legion who would decimate the phalanx; and compare that with the plausible statement you just made.
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