I can't think of too much on long term drill development though numerous 
drill manuals are available in reprint. The best discussions I know 
apart from role of modern drill are on C17 Dutch reforms eg by J.B. Kist 
in commentary which comes in an 1971 edition of. Jacob de Gheyn 's 
Exercise of Arms; see also Marco van der Hoeven ed., /Exercise of Arms. 
Warfare in the Netherlands (1568-1648) /and M. van der Hoeven and J.P. 
Puype, /eds, The Arsenal of the World. Dutch arms trade in the 
seventeenth century. /On relation between reform and arms trade but in 
Dutch is M.A.G. de Jong, ‘Militaire hervormingen in het Staatse leger en 
de opbouw van het wapenbedrijf, 1585-1621’/, Bijdragen en Mededelingen 
betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden/ 118 (2003) 467-493. There 
is also the whole military revolution debate literature . Modern 
management and work discipline is clearly linked to mass production 
techniques whose origin lie in production of guns with interchangeable 
parts first in France in C18 and later in the armouries of US in 19th 
century and the development of machine tools on which there is a very 
extensive literature* *but see D. Hounshell, /From the American System 
to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing 
Technology in the United States/ . This is also perhaps a very complex 
link to rise of military professionalisation see works by John Lynn, 
G/iant of the Grand Siècle: The French Army, 1610-1715/; Langins, 
/Conserving the Enlightenment: French Military Engineering from Vauban 
to the Revolution/ and Ken Alder's /Engineeering the Revolution: Arms 
and Enlightenment in France 1763-1815/ for rather different views on 
military engineers as forces for innovation and conservatism. Also works 
by economic historians on factory discipline eg G. Clark, 'Factory 
discipline'**'*,*/The Journal of Economic History/, Vol. 54i (994), pp. 
128-163. and lit on armies and state formation is relevant eg C. Tilly, 
/Coercion, Capital and European States, A.D. 990-1990 and/ even Chandra 
Mukerji's,/Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles///. Sorry 
if these refs are rather diffuse.

paul courtney
leicester