LONDON — British involvement in Afghanistan — and until recently Iraq — continues to reveal logistics support and spares supply problems, according to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee.

The committee’s “Support to high intensity operations” report examines the Defense Ministry’s performance in providing and supporting equipment for recent combat operations.

“The [Defense Ministry] has delivered important new equipment quickly through its Urgent Operational Requirements (UOR) process in order to address evolving threats, but the consequence has sometimes been inadequate initial support or a time limited capability,” the report suggests.

The Defense Ministry has been reliant on the use of the UOR acquisition process to comparatively rapidly acquire equipment for forces involved in combat operations. With this in mind the report suggests this raises “a question about the balance of [the Defense Ministry’s] existing equipment program.”

It recommends that as part of a pending Defense Review — to get fully underway in the second half of 2010 — that the ministry “should fundamentally re-examine whether the equipment program is delivering the right balance between those capabilities relevant for current operations and those for the future.”

The report states that while the “Mastiff vehicle has performed well” in Afghanistan it “suffered spares shortages.” Meanwhile, the “Vector vehicle proved to have low reliability.”

The report also notes that the ministry “has failed to meet consistently its own supply chain targets for both Iraq and Afghanistan, although the average length of time a unit waits for a particular demand has reduced.”

In terms of helicopters the committee identifies spares issues with regard to both the AgustaWestland Merlin and WAH-64 Apache, “necessitating cannibalization of aircraft and reducing helicopter availability in the United Kingdom.”

While recognizing the priority is to support combat operations, the committee suggests the ministry should “seek ways to further incentivize industry to achieve better availability of spares in order to provide support to helicopters both in the U.K. and deployed overseas.”

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