A British newspaper charged Saturday that the country's troops in Afghanistan were suffering severe shortages of equipment, but the defence ministry said the soldiers had the tools to accomplish their mission.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper said that just half of the Apache helicopter gunships were working and only 70 percent of the Chinook transport helicopters were available.

But the Ministry of Defence insisted that British forces, who are mostly based in the restive southern Helmand province fighting insurgents, had the helicopters required for the job.

British soldiers in Afghanistan. A British newspaper charged that the country's troops in Afghanistan were suffering severe shortages of equipment, but the defence ministry said the soldiers had the tools to accomplish their mission.[AFP]

One garrison was down to its last 200 mortar rounds because there were no helicopters to supply it, the broadsheet said.

Meanwhile just 16 of 96 promised new armoured vehicles have been delivered, engineers were travelling in lightly-armed trucks while transporting high explosives and some soldiers had bought their own binoculars to replace Army sights, it said.

British troops had to borrow a truck from the small Estonian contingent, said the newspaper.

Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged in October that commanders on the ground in Afghanistan would be provided with whatever equipment they thought was necessary in order to take on the Taliban.

The MoD acknowledged that helicopters were crucial in the fight against Taliban rebels and said that more were on the way to Afghanistan.

"Our military commanders have the helicopters required to provide combat and medical support for our troops in combat," a spokeswoman said.

"These helicopters have proved vital to the success of our operation in Afghanistan which is why we are spending 230 million pounds (455 million dollars, 340 million euros) making 14 additional aircraft for deployment over the next two years.

"There is no shortage of combat fighting vehicles in Afghanistan. We are part of a coalition and so we share assets."

A total of 60 British troops have died in Afghanistan since the US-led drive to overthrow the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime began in November 2001.

British forces are in Afghanistan as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force mission.

There are over 6,000 British troops in Afghanistan, a figure set to increase to around 7,700 over the year.