Is it just me, or is there a change in the way our conflict in Afghanistan is being reported? The sad loss of eight soldiers in one day is something very revealing about modern warfare and our perception of combat. On the one hand, there are persistent calls for our troops to receive the equipment they so badly need. On the other, politicians are bemused and tell us this equipment is there. Further, an army spokesman said very clearly to a suspicious reporter that the army had the equipment they needed. More importantly, he stressed that the types of equipment issued meet their needs.

We now see operations in Afghanistan in terms of protection. No-one likes to hear that our boys have been killed, but the perception of the public is that somehow they can be made invulnerable by armour, both vehicle and personal, or perhaps that overwhelming firepower and ordnance is enough to keep an enemy at bay.

The reality of the battle out there, as suggested by the army spokesman, is that you can have too much protection. A study of military history shows the arms race making cycles between light fast-moving troops and heavily armoured crustaceans. The peculiar thing is armour reaches a point where it becomes an encumbrance, and no longer protects the soldier in the expected way. That is what our modern army draws attention to. However good kevlar jackets or ceramic plates may be at stopping bullets, they don't protect absolutely, and remain very heavy for a soldier already loaded with substantial amounts of ammunition and sundry items.

Instead, the army spokesman spoke of the need for soldiers to remain hidden. If the enemy doesn't see you, he doesn't shoot you. That after all, is why the Taliban have survived for so long.

Town of the Week

Wootton Bassett isn't far from where I live, and also happens to be the nearest town to Lyneham Airbase, where the bodies of the dead soldiers are returned to home soil. With the untimely death of eight soldiers, once again the people of Wootton line up along the street and honour the funeral procession. Despite my misgivings about media representation, you do sense a genuine emotion from the people seeing so many military coffins passing their way.

The thing is, I also note that the deaths have been accentuated. A tragic event, countered by the story of sacrifice by one soldier shot while attempting to rescue a wounded comrade, but one that has received an extraordinary coverage considering the almost regular bylines of another death in Afghanistan that have scrolled across our news programs since the conflict began.

It is of course war - armed violence - and inevitably there are casualties. I'm not heartless. My thoughts go to the families and friends of the fallen. Yet in the past this sort of event has been portrayed as a reason to pull out, as if casualties in warfare are unpalatable at all, surely a reflection on modern values. This recent reporting marks a change. It supports the military efforts of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the pursuit of their duty. No bad thing, provided it doesn't become jingoistic, yet I sense a political move behind it. How better to avoid criticism before the polls than to project the soldiers in such a manner?

That our servicemen deserve our respect isn't the issue. It's the creation of a media bandwagon with which to ride out a looming election that bothers me.