Mariscal Sucre was laid down on 19 November 1976 and launched on 28 September 1978 by Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico at Riva Trigoso.

In 1987, together with other units of the Venezuelan navy, she participated in the confrontation with Colombia which almost resulted in an armed conflict, known in Colombia as the ARC Caldas corvette crisis, in which a dispute relating to the territorial waters of the Gulf of Maracaibo naval forces in the area, and a significant deployment of military means at the border of the two countries.

[1] Between 1998 and 2002, together with her sister ARV Almirante Brión, she underwent modernization works at the Ingalls Shipbuilding plants in Pascagoula in Mississippi.

Venezuela never paid the full bill for this repair, leading to more than 20 years of litigation in the US and in international arbitration[3] starting in 2002.

As of 2023, the successor to Ingalls Shipbuilding, Northrop Grumman Ship Systems continued to seek satisfaction of a claim of USD 137,977,646.43 plus interest by taking part in a court-ordered asset sale of the US possessions of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.