The bodies of eight British soldiers killed during the army's bloodiest 24 hours in Afghanistan will be flown home to a military base.

Thousands are expected to line the streets of Wootton Bassett, near RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, to watch the men's cortege - the largest yet to drive through the market town.

Their return comes amid renewed controversy over the resources and manpower committed to Afghanistan, as Prime Minister Gordon Brown was accused of rejecting a plea from military chiefs to send 2,000 additional troops and taking the cheaper option of a single battalion of 700 men, bringing the total UK deployment to around 9,000.

Conservative leader David Cameron challenged Mr Brown in the Commons to confirm whether defence chiefs told him they needed the 2,000 extra soldiers.

The PM responded only that he had "talked about all the options" with the military before deciding how many extra troops to send and had been reassured by commanders on the ground that "we have the manpower that we need for current operations".

But The Times reported that all the service chiefs, backed by then Defence Secretary John Hutton, agreed that without the extra 2,000 troops it would be difficult to fulfil the Army's objectives of taking and holding land in Helmand province and training Afghan forces.

Among the servicemen being repatriated are five soldiers from 2nd Battalion The Rifles who died near Sangin, in Helmand province on Friday, in two "daisy-chain" explosions.

Corporal Jonathan Horne, 28, and Riflemen William Aldridge, 18, James Backhouse, 18 and Joseph Murphy, 18, were rescuing comrades from an earlier blast when a second device detonated. Rifleman Murphy was carrying rifleman Daniel Simpson, 20 - who was injured by the first makeshift bomb - when both were killed in the following explosion.

Rifleman Aldridge, from Bromyard, Herefordshire, was attempting to reach casualties from the first blast, despite being wounded himself. Also returning on the C17 plane will be Corporal Lee Scott, 26, of 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, who died in an explosion on the same day, just north of Nad-e-Ali, during Operation Panther's Claw.

Making up the eight are two men killed in separate incidents on Thursday. Private John Brackpool, 27, of Prince of Wales' Company, of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards, was shot at Char-e-Anjir near Lashkar Gah, while on sentry duty. Rifleman Daniel Hume, 22, of 4th Battalion The Rifles was killed in an explosion while on a foot patrol, again near Nad-e-Ali.