For a few months at least, American forces in Helmand are looking with envy on their British comrades-in-arms. Camp Leatherneck, the colossus of a US base that is emerging from the Helmand desert, is still a dusty building site of toiling earthmovers, fly-blown tents and mobile toilets. In the British Camp Bastion, built three years ago, there are gleaming food halls, gravel roads, drainage systems and rows of air-conditioned sleeping quarters.

But on the battlefield the envy is often the other way round. The 4,000 US Marines involved in Operation Khanjar in the southern districts of Helmand have arrived in theatre, as is their modus operandi, with their own air support of between 50 and 100 aircraft. The figure cannot be given more accurately for security reasons, but it is at least as big as the entire air force of many small countries.

It includes US Marine Sea Stallion and Sea Knight transport helicopters — both variants on the Chinook that is the workhorse of British units — as well as Cobra and Apache attack helicopters and Harrier jump jets for close air support, and Hercules air-to-air refuelling aircraft.

The start of Operation Khanjar saw two entire Marine battalions airlifted deep into Taleban-controlled territory. The Marine aircraft are prioritised for use by their US parent unit, but will fly in support of British and other forces when they have “excess missions” that their own troops do not need. “We have lifted British troops, though not regularly,” one US Marine officer told The Times.

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By comparison, the 8,000 British troops on the ground have been given the support of about 20 Chinook and other transport helicopters, including several Lynx helicopters that have difficulty flying in the summer heat.

However, a significant part of the US “surge” in Afghanistan is the arrival of Combat Aviation Brigade, a force of about 100 aircraft — both transport and attack — deployed in Regional Command South, the area that includes Helmand province.

This is a doubling of the number of US air support brigades in the country and these aircraft are available to all Nato forces on the ground. This does not mean that Britain’s helicopter needs will instantly be met. The air assets are allocated according to need on a bidding basis — meaning that Dutch, Canadian and Danish troops in the southern provinces, who have almost nothing, can all lay a claim, not to mention the 4,000 extra American troops sent to Kandahar province this year.

Look skywards in Nad-e-Ali district, Helmand, where British forces are involved in Operation Panther’s Claw, and high above there is usually the silhouette of an American B1 bomber, F15 or F16 circling “on station”. Sometimes there are also French Mirages or Dutch Apaches or F16s.

While American air dominance is made available to less well equipped nations, the vast majority of British resupply in forward areas continues to be by road. British forces now have access to the Mastiff, a vehicle beloved by the soldiers for the strength of its armour and V-shaped hull which deflects blast.

Such vehicles are the response to the threat of roadside bombs that emerged in Iraq. The MRAP (mine resistant, ambush protected), the American equivalent, is becoming ubiquitous. The US Army has received more than 3,000 MRAPs; the British Army has ordered 248 Mastiffs.

The MRAP has proved its worth on the tarmac roads of Iraq, but its suitability to negotiate the dirt tracks and ditches that make up the battlespace in Helmand remains unproved. At more than five tonnes, there are fears that many locally built bridges will collapse under the weight of them.

But even though the arrival of more US military hardware does not automatically bring fewer casualties and greater success, the MRAP’s existence in such numbers is proof that, when the US army needs something, it gets it. Britain’s procurement process is painfully slow by comparison.

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