Dean Johnson, the JLTV deputy program manager for the US Marine Corps, said vendors would be delivering a "Category A Enhanced Protection vehicle" between September and October 2010 because current iterations of the vehicle lacked the desired armour.
"It's a higher level of protection," he said on June 3.
"This has been an evolving requirement during this TD phase.
"We didn't start out with that.
"Instead of delaying this for maybe another program or until the next phase of the program, we've now included the production of that vehicle in this phase.
"All vendors are delivering that and we'll test that vehicle after we test the current family of vehicles."
On a related note, a team of Australians has just returned from driving JLTV prototypes in the US.
Vehicles due to arrive in Australia later in 2010 are ahead of schedule and will prove to be tough competition for the local contenders put forward under the manufactured and supported in Australia vehicles from Thales, Force Protection and General Dynamics Land Systems Australia.