In the biting cold and snowy landscape of Salisbury Plain, soldiers of the Black Panthers, nickname of 19 Light Brigade, were doing their best to imagine what life would be like for them in Afghanistan when they begin their first tour there next month.

Teenage soldiers frozen to the core during training at Westdown Camp yesterday will be thrust into their first operational environment in temperatures that will reach 50C (122F) before their six-month tour is over.

Facing his first venture to Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, 19-year-old Rifleman Aaron Fell, of 2 Rifles, who joined the Army 18 months ago, is fully aware that as a member of a recce platoon he will be involved in seeking out the Taleban. His cheeks bright red from the cold, he repeated what his training instructor must have told him: “The Taleban are adapting to us but we're adapting to them.”

Rifleman Fell, from Bournemouth, is one of about 4,000 soldiers attached to the Black Panthers who will be the first in the British Army to go to war with a set of individually fitted digital earplugs to prevent deafness caused by the constant noise of high-velocity rounds, mortar rockets, heavy machinegun fire and other explosions.

The Times revealed last year how hundreds of soldiers returning from Afghanistan had serious hearing difficulties diagnosed, with some regiments being forced to withdraw dozens of personnel from operational duties after they had been medically downgraded.

Although heavy-duty ear defenders were issued to soldiers, they routinely failed to wear them because they found it difficult to hear what their colleagues were saying.

Brigadier Tim Radford, commander of 19 Light Brigade, said that all his soldiers had been issued with four sets of moulded earplugs that had been designed by Racal to filter out loud noises, such as gunfire, while retaining the ability to hear shouts of command and messages on their radios. The MoD has bought 10,000 sets.

The Black Panther units include The Light Dragoons, 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, The Black Watch (3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland), 2 Rifles and elements of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment.

Some of the units have served in Helmand with other brigades, but the majority, such as Rifleman Fell, have had to be given a crash course in Afghan culture, traditions and history. “I'm anxious about it obviously but I'm not really worried, although my mum will be,” he said.

“But I've been well trained. If I worked for McDonald's I'd be cooking burgers, but I'm a soldier, so this is the job I do,” he added.

Lance-Corporal Mark “Hollywood” Farragher, 30, also of 2 Rifles, is a trained sniper. His role, as he put it succinctly, was to use his L115A3 rifle with a range of up to 1,600 metres to “take out” the Taleban. “With the Taleban you don't get a second chance,” he said.

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