The head of the Army won a personal victory today when his “shopping list” of equipment and troop demands for Afghanistan were formally presented to Gordon Brown at Number 10.

His request for more helicopters, additional troops and extra spy-in-the-sky unmanned surveillance drones to seek out the Taleban was passed to the Prime Minister by Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the Chief of the Defence Staff.

The involvement of Sir Jock and the decision to go direct to Number 10 highlighted the drama of a week in which General Dannatt has grabbed the headlines by making public his concerns about the campaign in Afghanistan during a visit to the troops in Helmand.

Underlining his support for General Dannatt, Sir Jock came out of the talks with Mr Brown and confirmed his and the army chief’s view that the deployment of more helicopters to Afghanistan would save lives.

Speaking in Downing Street, Sir Jock said: “In this situation where you have lots of improvised explosive devices, the more you can increase your tactical flexibility by moving people by helicopters, then the more unpredictable your movements become to the enemy.Therefore it is quite patently the case that you could save casualties by doing that.”

Afterwards Downing Street said Gen Dannatt’s recommendations would be looked at “very seriously”.

General Dannatt, who has been accused of playing politics over the issue of equipment, said today that if casualty rates remained high the entire operation would be in jeopardy.

The statements by two of Britain’s most senior military figures come a day after Gordon Brown was forced to defend his funding of the Army.

This morning the Ministry of Defence announced that a soldier from 2nd Battalion The Rifles was killed during a foot patrol in Helmand yesterday. Sixteen British soldiers have been killed this month.

General Dannatt, who has already called for more helicopters, continued his vocal campaign for improved equipment this morning. “Quite rightly if we carry on with the kind of casualty numbers we saw last week the people of our own country might say: hold on this is not a price worth paying.”

“We do need more troops, we need more boots on the ground,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

General Dannatt claimed that more soldiers were required to reduce the impact of the improvised explosive devices, which have caused many of the British injuries including the soldier killed yesterday.

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