A Royal Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan yesterday, travelling in an armoured Viking vehicle that the Ministry of Defence has ordered to be withdrawn next year because it has proved to be too vulnerable to attack by the Taleban.

He was named last night as Marine Jason Mackie, 21, from Bampton in Oxfordshire. Major Richard Hopkins, officer commanding Armoured Support Group, said: “He was immensely proud of being a Royal Marine and a Viking operator and took great pleasure in his work.”

Mr Mackie’s family paid tribute, saying: “Jason was one in a billion and will be sorely missed by his family and friends and his partner Vic and her family”.

He is the sixth British serviceman to die in Afghanistan in the past eight days, bringing the total number who have died since 2001 to 159. Military commanders have been warning that a peak in violence was expected over the next few months in the lead-up to the presidential elections due on August 20. Britain is to send a battalion of 700 soldiers to Helmand for a four-month period to provide added security for the elections.

The soldier was the third member of the Royal Marine Armoured Support Group, which drives and operates the Vikings, to be killed in Helmand province in the past 12 months.

The attack near Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand, came a few days after the publication of a report by the National Audit Office, which criticised the MoD for taking too long to get properly armoured vehicles out to the troops in Afghanistan.

The Viking, which was introduced into service in Afghanistan only three years ago, was found to be insufficently armoured under the driver’s seat. The vehicle is used to ferry troops across dangerous terrain in Helmand.

Last year the MoD admitted that the Viking was not robust enough to withstand the increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs and announced that it planned to buy a new vehicle, the Warthog, but it will not be ready for operations until next year.

Problems and delays with equipment for land troops in Afghanistan were highlighted yesterday by General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the Army. In a speech at the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House in London he said that Britain was in danger of “squandering” too much money on weapon systems designed in the Cold War, instead of focusing on the equipment needed for today’s land campaigns.

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