Army patrols in Afghanistan 'cancelled due to lack of ammunition'

A personal account kept by Warrant Officer Sean Upton before he was killed last year suggests that two missions had to be called off due to a shortage of mortar rounds.

WO2 Upton, of the Royal Artillery, wrote that his men fired so much ammunition in one battle with the Taliban it was the equivalent of six days' allocation.

His unit was then left with a dire shortage of ammunition when a helicopter carrying fresh supplies was shot down and it took over 48 hours for more to arrive.

The 35-year-old revealed the situation in an entry on his laptop diary for June 29 last year – a month before he was killed by a bomb.

In it, he referred to calculations by the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ) about how much ammunition was needed for troops in contact (TiC).

The father of two wrote: "Patrol was cancelled due to lack of ammunition after yesterday's contact.

"Apparently PJHQ have worked out a calculation on approximately how much ammunition should be used in a TiC. We used six TiCs worth yesterday."

Two days later WO2 Upton who was, serving with the RA's 5th Regiment in Sangin, wrote: "Today's patrol got cancelled as ammunition still had not arrived."

His diary, which was made public as the inquest into his death opened in Richmond, North Yorks, also suggests that another patrol was cancelled after they ran out of water.

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