Spain's Oquendo-class destroyers and delayed construction

How should the Spanish Oquendo-class destroyers be assessed?

Assuming the question refers to the Spanish ships begun in the 1950s, they are judged useful destroyer escorts whose prolonged construction left a gun-and-torpedo design behind changing requirements.

The identification is made provisionally: the question is taken to refer to Spain's Oquendo-class destroyers begun in the 1950s. They are described as useful destroyer escorts of about 3,000 tons fully loaded. Nine had been planned, but only three were ordered and completed. The account places their start in 1951, the first launch in 1959, and one launch as late as 1970, illustrating the delay that frames the assessment. The machinery combined boilers and turbines from different French manufacturers, an arrangement regarded as troublesome. By completion, the ships' gun-and-torpedo design faced naval requirements that had moved on.