Hugh Nilbey
“Turn to Alma 49:6. There’s no better known maxim than that generals always plan the next war in terms of the last war. They always fight the last war because that’s where their experience is. That’s where they can correct their mistakes. They talk it over and endlessly argue what they would have done, what this person should have done and that person should have done. The English are great on that. That’s exactly what happened here. Notice this neat touch here in the verse 6: ’…they supposed that they should be privileged to come upon them as they had hitherto done; yea, and they had also prepared themselves with shields, and with breastplates [they were getting ready for the other war, the war that they had hitherto been victorious in]; and they had also prepared themselves with garments of skins, yea, very thick garments to cover their nakedness.’ Notice, they had matched the Nephites’ armor (see Alma 43:19-21). All the things they had hitherto done they were doing now, but that wasn’t enough because Moroni was ahead of them. Moroni was a real military genius.” (Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Lecture 68, p. 138)