Why ship labels mislead at the Battle of the Paracel Islands

How did the South Vietnamese Navy lose the 1974 Battle of the Paracel Islands despite appearing to have the heavier force?

Its deployment was poor, and the nominal destroyer and frigates were less heavily armed than their category labels suggested.

The 1974 Battle of the Paracel Islands appears to favor South Vietnam if the ships are compared only by their labels. Its force is described as a destroyer, two frigates, and a minesweeper, facing Chinese minesweepers, submarine chasers, and patrol craft. The nominal destroyer was an Edsall-class destroyer escort, and the frigates were Barnegat-class ships, so those labels overstated the armament a reader might expect. Poor deployment also prevented the South Vietnamese force from exploiting its apparent weight-of-fire advantage. This is a brief explanation; the answer explicitly leaves the full course of the battle for a longer treatment.