While the experience of attacking a fortified city was apparently new to the Lamanites, they quickly learned that battle would be lengthy. The well-defended entrance repelled the first attack so decisively that the Lamanites began digging down the dirt walls, hoping to make a wider opening through which their greater numbers could press in.
Attacking the walls is a reliable method of conquering a fortified city (usually the defenders cannot renew wall material that the attackers take away), but it exacts a high price in lives, as the Lamanites found. Just as the attack on the entrance was repulsed, so were the diggers’ efforts. The strategic advantage of having a protective barrier in front of the defenders and the gravitational advantage which increased the force of the defenders’ missiles and weakened the upward-launched missiles of the attackers all had the effect of continuing the slaughter of the Lamanite army.