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The vehicles offered inadequate protection, were top-heavy, hard to manoeuvre in rough terrain and had insufficient firepower, the witnesses said.
Again, soldier after soldier told the inquest, held at Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, that because of a shortage of Ebex metal detectors – crucial tools in the fight against roadside bombs – the troops had undertaken little or no hands-on training with them ahead of deployment.
Some said it was weeks, even months, before they got hold of the detectors in Afghanistan. One even hinted that he had been so desperate he stole a detector.
"They have to borrow, beg [to] acquire such an essential piece of equipment? Is that really it?" the coroner, David Masters, asked Colonel A, the commander of the unit the four were part of.
Colonel A replied "There was a shortage of equipment. That was the case." He added that the situation had been "resolved", and Masters said "I hope it has."
Bryant, 26, of the Intelligence Corps, died alongside Territorial Army special forces soldiers Corporal Sean Robert Reeve, 28, Lance Corporal Richard Larkin, 39, and 31-year-old Private Paul Stout.
The four were helping mentor police on 17 June 2008 when news broke that inmates had escaped from a prison in Kandahar. Their unit was asked to help local police officers recapture the prisoners and to disrupt the enemy's lines of communication.
They began by carrying out vehicle checks on route 601, east of Lashkar Gah, before being ordered to make their way off the main route towards the village of Miralzi to link up with members of the Royal Scots Regiment. An enemy fighter had been killed, and they were told to remove his body.
As they advanced towards Miralzi in the middle of the afternoon, two of the Snatch Land Rovers became stuck on rough terrain. They freed them and reached higher ground, and the Royal Scots told them of a different route along a narrow track.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, as many witnesses did, a soldier identified only as O, who was in another vehicle, described how Operation Barma Drills - searches for improvised explosive devices – took place.
Bryant was in the back of the leading Land Rover, while Larkin was driving. The vehicle's commander was in the front passenger seat and two others were standing up, keeping watch, weapons ready.
The vehicle drove another 75 metres (246ft) along a track until it reached a gap between two compounds. O, who had lost sight of the vehicle, said he heard a "huge" explosion. The front wheels of the Land Rover had cleared a ditch, but an IED was triggered as the back wheels rolled over it. When he reached the scene, O said the Land Rover had been "crumpled inwards".
The rear crew compartment, in which Bryant was sitting, was "completely crushed" and the vehicle had been flipped upside down, coming to rest five metres from the crater left by the blast.
It is believed the IED, which contained up to 100kg of high explosive, was triggered when the vehicle passed over a pressure plate.
The commander was the only person who survived. In a statement, he said: "I recall our vehicle being catapulted. I remember seeing the ground, then the sky, then the ground, then the sky. I remember being conscious throughout."
The suspicion is that if the vehicle the four were in had been better suited to rough ground, it might not have been "channelled" through the gap between the two compounds where the IED had been planted. If the soldiers had had more Ebex metal detectors and more experiences of using them, they may have found the bomb.
The inquest put the issue of military equipment at the top of the political agenda ‑ and, unfortunately for Gordon Brown, coincided with his appearance before the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war.
Asked whether concerns had been raised about the use of Snatch Land Rovers in Iraq, Brown answered that military commanders had been granted every request they made for equipment.
Outside the inquiry, lawyers acting for the relatives of personnel killed in Snatch Land Rovers were not satisfied.
The Ministry of Defence tried to offer reassurance. It admitted the vehicles were still used in Afghanistan but no longer in areas of "heightened threat from IEDs".
It also highlighted new vehicles, offering greater protection and range than Snatch Land Rovers, that are either already in Afghanistan or will arrive there soon.
Following the coroner's verdict, more details of the equipment troops now have or are to be given are expected.
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