Re: Battle of the Paracel Islands (1974)... PLAN sent the RVN Navy packing...
The info I had was that two RVN frigates were crippled beyond repair with smoke billowing from their decks and superstructure.
After the incident had subsided, it was suggested that RVN command dispatched further units to the region and had the two crippled frigates sunk. A number of Vietnamese fishing trawlers used as naval vessels also took part in the battle.
However, like Vietnam’s other crude Soviet era frigates and Corvettes, their guns did not have the range that PLA-N forces have. As a result, RVN was out ranged by guns from PLA-N forces and suffered massively.
Pics uploaded in the Internet depicted and suggested that between two to three hundred RVN sailor from the two crippled RVN frigate were snatched from the water and taken prisoner and later released.
Western sources however had either honestly misquoted the event or they may have intentionally made discrediting accounts of what had happened either for pure political reasons or purely to keep the truth from reaching other countries in the region.
The RVN Navy used American equipment until the RVN's demise at the hands of the DRV in 1975. The RVN account of the battle indicates that the Wikipedia entry may have exaggerated the equipment used by the RVN Navy against PLAN (possibly the result of commentary entered by English-savvy Chinese Wikipedia contributors). PLAN appears to have had the advantage of missile boats (vs the RVN Navy's guns-only ships), as well as air support from bases on Hainan. Bottom line is that China's superior equipment was lined up against the WWII cast-offs that the RVN inherited from the US, at a time when the US was determined to not only abandon its erstwhile ally, but ensure its demise. The battle was lost way back in 1973, when Kissinger arranged for the end of American financial and military aid to RVN, even as the Soviets and the Chinese ramped up aid to the DRV.