The senior officers who have proposed an accelerated training course for 900 fast-track recruits for Afghanistan have admitted that there would be risks for the Army’s “reputation, duty of care and performance under pressure on operations”.

The Ministry of Defence said that civilians recruited into the Army under the proposed accelerated training programme for Afghanistan could be signed up for less than 15 months as part of a plan to meet manpower shortages.

These specially selected recruits would be badged as members of the Territorial Army, not as regulars, although officials admitted they would fulfil the role of regular infantry.

A review of battalions available for Afghanistan next year had revealed that most would be 100 soldiers short, and this has been the reason for the proposal to recruit a batch of soldiers under special circumstances and give them a shortened form of training.

After the report in The Times yesterday on the controversial new scheme, the MoD put out a statement in which it said: “Nothing has been agreed or indeed discussed by chiefs, but there are ideas potentially to recruit people under possible TA conditions of service to the Army for a limited period of time. They would complete training and an operational tour with the option to leave or stay on afterwards.”

Under the proposed scheme the TA-badged soldiers would be offered the option of joining the regular Army, remaining in the TA or becoming civilians again, once their short-term contract was completed.

Senior infantry officers involved in the “exceptional” proposal have acknowledged they have no idea whether this new recruiting method will have an impact on other recruiting for the regular Army or for the TA.

The MoD confirmed that under the proposed scheme, this special batch of recruits would not be put through the normal combat infantry course lasting between 26 and 28 weeks which all existing regular troops have to complete, but would be expected to do up to 16 weeks, and then spend four months with regular army units.

The reasion the special recruits would have to serve under a TA contract is because of the proposed limited engagement terms. Regular army recruits sign up for at least four years.

Regular soldiers preparing for Afghanistan would still be required to do the full combat course, the MoD said. “No one is deployed on operations without the right training. What we deliver is, and always will be, first-class,” the MoD said.

“It is our responsibility to deliver the requisite amount of training while we are facing high operational tempo, to ensure that we are delivering the right results. Reviewing how we deliver this is an essential part of getting these results,” the MoD said.

The MoD was supposed to have announced the next rotation of troops for Afghanistan in a statement in the Commons yesterday, but the details were postponed for a week. Officials claimed the delay was the result of a tight parliamentary timetable.

Patrick Mercer, Conservative MP for Newark and a former commanding officer of The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, said that the proposal for accelerated training underlined the “manpower crisis” facing the Army. “The MoD is in denial about it, but the truth is that the Army is not just 3,000 men short but, effectively, about 12,000 short because of the high number of soldiers who are physically unfit to be deployed,” Mr Mercer said.

Figures for individual army units released to Mr Mercer have revealed the scale of the manpower shortages affecting infantry battalions being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a written Commons answer, the MoD revealed that 4th Regiment Royal Artillery, prior to deployment to Afghanistan, was 200 soldiers under strength, with 100 listed as being left behind on recruiting duties or were physically unfit. The 1st Battalion Cold-stream Guards, was 100 men short before being deployed to Afghanistan. For Iraq, according to the figures, the 2nd Battalion The Royal Welsh was nearly 250 short, and the 1st Battalion Irish Guards about 220.

Mr Mercer said that often there were not enough soldiers to act as battlefield replacement personnel when troops were injured or killed. It had been “madness” for the Army to lose four infantry battalions under the restructuring announced in 2004, he said.

The MoD has announced that in a recent three-month period at least 26 troops who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan were found to be suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder. The backlog of inquests into Service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan now stands at 114.

An exhibition put together by soldiers to depict their experiences fighting the Taleban has been nominated for the Art Fund Prize (Ben Hoyle writes). Helmand: The Soldiers’ Story, at the National Army Museum, Chelsea, is one of ten projects and institutions being considered for the £100,000 prize. The winner will be announced in May. More than 150 soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade contributed to the exhibition, which tells the story of their tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2006.

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