Torpedo Boat Craze 2.0
Stop flinging panties at USVs!
I feel a Unmanned Surface Vessel fever coming on!
The inexpensive USVs could be manufactured in large numbers and held in reserve to deal with a Chinese attack. The USVs could be stored in bomb proof coastal shelters to limit losses from Chinese missile attacks. Once the Chinese fleet encounters USVs they might be persuaded to turn around and spare themselves an embarrassing defeat.
Sounds good, right? I mean, Taiwan can totally count on building as many bomb proof shelters as needed, right? China would never think to scatter mines around the exit points of those bomb proof shelters, naturally. And it is inconceivable that China would scuttle old civilian ships in whatever channels those bomb proof shelters need to launch their USVs.
Hell, why even speculate on what China might do that I haven't mentioned or thought of. Suicide USVs are the flavor-of-the-month, silver bullet-wise! They overcome all obstacles! Where anti-ship missiles, long-range smart torpedoes, and a variety of cheap and smart mines don't scare the Chinese enough, slow (but low visibility!) suicide drone boats will!
While this sounded absurd to some Chinese admirals, there was the recent experience where the Ukrainians actually defeated the Russian Black Sea Fleet with such tactics. Why wouldn’t such a tactic work against a Chinese fleet?
Because Taiwan needs to greatly compress what Ukraine has done:
Anybody who says Ukraine's success against Russia's Black Sea Fleet should cause China to worry about what Taiwan could do ignores that Ukraine has inflicted this damage over 25 months. Taiwan would need to inflict multiples of that damage in 25 hours.
Really, people are getting too worked up over USVs before navies develop counter-measures, just as the first small torpedo boat craze was deflated by counter-measures:
The introduction of fast torpedo boats in the late 19th century was a serious concern to the era's naval strategists, introducing the concept of tactical asymmetric warfare. In response, navies operating large ships introduced firstly batteries of small-calibre quick-firing guns on board large warships for 'anti-torpedo' defence, before developing small but seaworthy ships, mounting light quick-firing guns, to accompany the fleet and counter torpedo boats. These small ships, which came to be called "torpedo boat destroyers" (and later simply "destroyers"), initially were largely defensive, primarily meeting the torpedo boat threat with their own guns outside of the range at which battleships would be vulnerable.
Yes, self-propelled torpedoes could sink ships. What a revelation! More effectively than the old spar-torpedo boats that suicide USVs have more in common with.
By all means, incorporate USVs into the Taiwanese defense effort. But there is no cheap silver bullet. As I noted in the compression post above:
Asymmetric means do not mean defense-in-depth is obsolete. Don't count on sinking a Chinese invasion fleet in the Taiwan Strait.
And perhaps consider the final part of a defense in depth--driving the enemy into the sea.