With the Lamanite guards incapacitated, the Nephite spies return to Moroni and report, suggesting that the armies were very closely positioned geographically.
Rather than break into the city, Moroni arms the prisoners. Perhaps one of the spies slipped away from the drinking party to notify the Nephite prisoners to be on the alert. Because Gid was fortified, the Nephite soldiers had to throw weapons over the walls at a point where they would be accessible to the prisoners but noiselessly enough that it would not rouse the sleeping but not drunk Lamanites. The walls over which the arms were tossed were the palisades atop the mounded earth. Thus, the arms that landed on the other side landed on dirt rather than a paved surface and also likely on a sloping surface rather than a flat area. This would also decrease the sound as the arms might hit and slide rather than hit and bounce.