HMS Folkestone: a small sloop on the China Station

Folkestone appears beside Birmingham and Ashigara in a visual comparison that makes the danger clear. The sloop brought a single four-inch gun to a standoff with three Myoko-class heavy cruisers whose towers and eight-inch batteries dwarfed her. Birmingham looked like a plausible opponent, while Folkestone appeared scarcely suited to the same fight. Her participation shows that forward-station duties could force small patrol ships into crises far beyond the battles for which their armament was designed. The difference in scale gives a direct measure of the risk accepted by Folkestone's crew.