What I always wonder is how the tactics and technology of the era were influenced by the societies that produced them. Would a society like ours sent back in time fight the same way or would our way of war reflect how our society is structured.

Not to copy Foucault too hard but it's an awful coincidence that massed formations led by a cadre of largely hereditary middle-class managers and upper-class generals started to develop and refine with societies beginning to industrialise. Whereas I imagine a much more post-industrial society would lean harder on individual units understanding strategic context (commander's intent) rather than ruthless discipline to work like cogs. Similar to how Revolutionary France ROFLstomped the rest of Europe with mass mobilisation.

>hurr durr no

Massed formations of infantry, uniformly equipped and paid by the central government, served the purpose of centralised monarchy. They were a tool of state centralisation. An army that drilled and moved as one body was a physical manifestation of a unified state.

The officer corps was drawn from the aristocracy and gentry, while the rank-and-file were peasants, urban poor, or mercenaries. The tactics reflected this divide. Individual initiative from a common soldier was neither expected nor trusted. Discipline, enforced through brutal punishment and relentless drill, was paramount. The soldier was a cog in a human machine, and the tactics were designed around this principle. They were not seen as individual citizens with agency, but as interchangeable parts of a state-owned weapon.

Pike and shot tactics along with the very slow development of professional (non-mercenary) armies was a reflection of cost. Muskets were extremely expensive weapons at the start and maintaining a standing army was ruinous to the degree if you tried everyone would view you as a threat. Similarly rifling existed for centuries before its viable deployment on the battlefield due to the cost and fouling.