The row over helicopter support for troops in Afghanistan was re-ignited after it emerged that a high-ranking officer had foreseen his own death.
Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thorneloe became the most senior British officer to die in the conflict when he was killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) on July 1.
Three weeks before his death, he complained bitterly in an email to his bosses that helicopter support for troops was "very clearly not fit for purpose".
It meant that troops had to be moved by road rather than by air, exposing them to the threat of IEDs - one of the Taliban's main weapons.
Ian Sadler, whose son Jack, 21, died when his Land Rover was hit by a mine in Afghanistan on December 4, 2007, said the admissions were the "final nail in Gordon Brown's coffin". Mr Sadler, of Exmouth, Devon, said: "I'm livid about this and have been aware of the MoD's lack of support for our soldiers for some time."
He said his son, a Trooper with the Honourable Artillery Company, would still be alive if a Chinook helicopter had been used to move some light guns and their ammunition into position. Instead, he said, it took troops - including his son - two days to do what a Chinook could have done in four 15-minute sorties.
Mr Sadler accused the Government and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of failing to support the troops and called for an inquiry into the deficiencies.
Tory MP Adam Holloway, who obtained Lt Col Thorneloe's email, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We have been told consistently that the senior officers say that there are enough helicopters to do the job and yet we now have literally in black and white, in a classified document, his weekly update, the fact that that is not the truth."
Three weeks after Lt Col Thorneloe's death, Prime Minister Gordon Brown dismissed suggestions British lives were being lost because of a shortage of helicopters. He said: "In the operations we are having at the moment it is completely wrong to say that the loss of lives has been caused by the absence of helicopters."
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And Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell insisted that Mr Brown's position was correct, saying "I don't believe" that the lives of any British troops have been lost in Afghanistan due to a lack of helicopter support.
