Re: The RVN Navy used American equipment until the RVN’s demise at the hands of the DRV in 1975.
Well... The F-5’s and some of the armors left behind was American. But the recollection I have for those frigates was that they are second hand Soviet clunkers just as those of the PRC’s of the day. Both are crude tin foil bath bubs with a Soviet stencil stamped in it that comes attached with limited functionability with one exception: the Chinese had fiddled with theirs and as a result, it conforms to the requirements that the PLA-N had set out. I do not recall any mentioning of air power and/or missiles deployments in that incident. Only guns aboard both navies were used.
Regarding Wikipedia” I never take what’s printed in the site with more than a grain of salt. Wiki is still western by nature and the contents in it still have this smell of western trickery and bad after taste to it. I use my own judgement and I use logic to arrive at a conclusion rather than reading up on what western medias had printed time and time again.
I mean after haviing been force fed these implants of an information, like all the “lose lips sinks ships of this board” who doesn’t have a mind of their own, one starts to live in these tales and in due course, get poisoned and hypnotized by it.
RVN collapsed in 1975. The Paracels Islands battle occurred in 1974. The only Soviet equipment used by RVN was perhaps Vietcong or NVA battle rifles, RPG's or artillery pieces captured in combat. DRV did use a lot of Soviet equipment, but it took no part in the battle with China over the Paracels - that was an all-RVN show.