heavy cavalry engaging heavy cavalry

[Urselius]

To quote Newton - in translation - "The acceleration of a body is directly proportional to, and in the same direction as, the net force acting on the body, and inversely proportional to its mass."

Hazelrig was heavily armoured, like a cataphract, perhaps if the Parliamentarians had been equipped with maces, like Constantine the Great's cavalry at Turin, he would have been beaten silly..

Swords are sharpened bars of metal with handles, lances are wooden poles with a sharp bit of metal on the end, this is equally true for the troops of Alexander III of Macedon and Napoleon I. Horses are horses, differences in breeds have relatively minor effects on their behaviour - I seem to remember a Roman horse was excavated that would have been 16 hands high, taller than most Napoleonic cavalry mounts.

Cavalry were intimidating when coming at you at speed. Much of the shock of shock action was psychological rather than physical. For the cuirassier at Waterloo facing a an infantry square just as for the contus armed lancer in ancient times his best hope of defeating infantry in formation was to panic them into opening their ranks. If they remained calm and united they could see off the cavalry - 180AD or 1800AD - no difference at all in the way things worked.