Photo: CSBC Corporation
BairdMaritime reports that Taiwan is building four 4,000 ton Coast Guard Cutters. Asian nations tend to use light displacement when reporting their ship size, so these may actually be larger than the Bertholf class National Security Cutters.
The first is expected to enter service in 2021 and all four to be delivered by 2027.
Taiwan has been beefing up their Coast Guard. A report on a previous class here. A report from 2011 here. An interesting note is that Taiwan actually has a pair of 270s built to a modified design.
Taiwanese cutters appear to be built to merchant standards and are lightly armed.
I did some reading about these in a website in Chinese. Through google translate, I was able to find out they are actually a Vard Design, more specifically the modified Vard 125 design. They are apparently designed to be up-armed for wartime mobilization if needed.
You can see the original Vard design in the image on the following link, it’s the one on the bottom right of the photo.
https://www.navalnews.com/event-news/imdex-asia-2019/2019/05/imdex-2019-new-members-in-vards-7-series-family-of-support-ships/
I also read they could be armed with a rocket system that their Coast Guard has been testing. The following link talks about the rocket system.
Now if these were guided rockets like the APKWS, that would be interesting. There are many such modifications of the 70 mm 2.75″ rockets either developed or in development.
These vessels are in fact based on the Vard 7 125 design. https://vardmarine.com/gallery/vard-7-125/
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