Nephi, yet in Arabia, envisioned wars and "great slaughter with the sword among my people." 1 Ne. iii:99. Long after the migration and after Nephi had built a Temple and had been made king, he said: "forty years had passed away, and we had already had w. and contentions with our brethren." Nephi's successor, Jacob, in last message said that the Lamanites "sought to destroy us continually, but that the Nephites were "as yet, conquerors of their enemies." Jac. v:40, 41. Thus Nephite military supremacy continued "as long as their adequacy in righteousness remained; when it sunk to a level approximate to that of the L. the supremacy became alternating, until, finally, the N. were "all destroyed," "are gone," "are no more," "none . . . that do exist upon the face of the land." 2 Morm. iv:2, 3, 8,11.
The same was true of the Jaredites who fought until there were but two left-a surviving general and a hiding prophet.
The instruments of warfare consisted of "the sharp pointed arrow, and the quiver, and the dart, and the javelin" (Jar 20) and "with bows and with arrows and with swords, and with cimeters, and with clubs, and with slings, and with all manner of weapons which we could invent." Mos. vi:19.