It’s always nice to see what others are doing.

We have talked about a cutter X before, that is, a cutter larger than the U.S. Webber class, but smaller than the Offshore Patrol Cutter, that would allow more days cruising at a distance from their home ports than is possible for the Webber class.

Focus Taiwan is reporting (it is their video above) that Taiwan is building ships in this class but in a very different form, for a very different purpose. It measures 60.4 meters in length and 14 meters in width, with a crew of 41. It is fast at 38 knots and has a range of 2,000 nautical miles (this is actually less than the range of the Webber class, but if this is quoted for a higher cruise speed, the range could actually be greater than that of the Webber class at the same lower speed). The great beam is the giveaway, the hull is something unusual.

Janes.com has pictures of the hull out of the water. A separate Janes report lists the armament as eight Hsiung Feng II (HF-2) and eight ramjet-powered Hsiung Feng III (HF-3) anti-ship missiles, an “Otobreda 76 mm gun, four 12.7 mm machine guns for close-range ship defence and a Mk 15 Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS) to defeat incoming projectiles and hostile aircraft.”

We have seen a similar hull form before.

This article originally appeared at Chuck Hill’s CG Blog and was cross-posted by permission. Chuck retired from the Coast Guard after 22 years service. Assignments included four ships, Rescue Coordination Center New Orleans, CG HQ, Fleet Training Group San Diego, Naval War College, and Maritime Defense Zone Pacific/Pacific Area Ops/Readiness/Plans. Along the way he became the first Coast Guard officer to complete the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) course and also completed the Naval Control of Shipping course. He has had a life-long interest in naval ships and history.