I came across a neat slideshow of various soldier load outs from 1066 to today. For the most part there is a trend of increasing equipment as time goes on but the variety of weapons carried decreases. Once our species masted firearm manufacturing (at least to a point where they were reasonably reliable and accurate) we said “Fuck these axes, maces, and swords.” That’s not surprising since the firearm really is the epitome of infantry weaponry.