I cant imagine Calvary jumping over 30-foot tall walls of the castle, that is jumping over the moat and other defences like sharpened stakes. There is no record of calvary taking over a sieged fortification by just ignoring everything and jumping in. Calvary is like modern tanks, it's Achille's heel is urban fighting so it is the same for the calvary. Historically even the Mongols recognized the futility of rushing the walls with hordes of horses and they went out of their way to recruit Chinese engineers with their sophisticated war engines. Another example can be the first proto all arms army that was Assyrian army in the neoclassic period. They had cavalry and chariots, yet they never risked them in sieges. Instead using siege equipment and shielded archers.  Crossbows were deadly in static fights and easier to deploy en masse than expensive calvary or even highly trained longbows.

whiskeyjack2017 wrote:

I cant imagine Calvary jumping over 30-foot tall walls of the castle, that is jumping over the moat and other defences like sharpened stakes. There is no record of calvary taking over a sieged fortification by just ignoring everything and jumping in. Calvary is like modern tanks, it's Achille's heel is urban fighting so it is the same for the calvary. Historically even the Mongols recognized the futility of rushing the walls with hordes of horses and they went out of their way to recruit Chinese engineers with their sophisticated war engines. Another example can be the first proto all arms army that was Assyrian army in the neoclassic period. They had cavalry and chariots, yet they never risked them in sieges. Instead using siege equipment and shielded archers.  Crossbows were deadly in static fights and easier to deploy en masse than expensive calvary or even highly trained longbows.

The first level of defense is a wooden fence which cavalry can't scale. You're certainly right about crossbows being better than cavalry, shame it's not balanced and that you can plow through the entire mediaval using nothing but crossbows.

I have to agree with the sentiments here re: cavalry and walls. Sure, troops can dismount to climb walls but this was not exactly a common thing in most warfare with light and heavy cavalry forces used more for maintaining a siege than as attackers for the wall which was left to the infantry forces. Fantasy movies and games have too long conditioned us to believe a number tropes about pre-firearm combat that simply never were true but sure do look good on a screen.

Actually I think it makes perfect sense that cavalry is nearly useless in sieges.

cavalry shines in open battles, not so much in sieges.

it's good that units have specific areas where they shine, and where they don't

as long as cavalry is strong in open combat to compensate, it's still a good unit class.