The boats were designed to have the range to sail non-stop from Italy to Kismayu, Italian Somaliland, where a new submarine base was to be built.

In order to operate in the Indian Ocean Monsoon the submarines were fitted with large conning towers and armed with two 100 mm (4 in) / 47 caliber guns.

12 more boats were planned for the 1940 and 1941 ship building programmes but were cancelled as a result of the outbreak of World War II.

But on 3 November, while submerged at daytime, she attacked and sank a 3,845 GRT Elder Dempster Lines motor ship Dagomba.

On 15 February, in the Bay of Biscay, she was attacked from the air by bombs and machine-gun fire, leading to the death of Sergeant Gunner Michelangelo Cannistraro.

She had received orders to proceed to Singapore, to attack merchant shipping in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean, and returned with a load of rubber and tin.

Asturias' boiler room and machinery spaces were flooded and she lost all power, but the badly damaged AMC managed to escape to Freetown under tow.

On 11 December 1941, she unsuccessfully attacked a British convoy and suffered damage by depth charges and gunfire from the destroyer HMS Farndale.

On 14 March 1942, returning from patrol in the waters of Malta, she was torpedoed and sunk by the submarine HMS Ultimatum, with the loss of 57 members of her crew.