Like her sister ships, Cesare Rossarol and Guglielmo Pepe, she was named after a famous Neapolitan light cavalryman who helped defend Venice from attacks by the Imperial Austrian Army during the revolutions in 1848.
She had three Yarrow three-drum water-tube boilers with water pipes, two groups of Belluzzo steam turbines rated at 24,000 hp (17,897 kW), and two three-blade propellers.
On 30 December 1915 she became part of the 2nd Scouting Group of the 4th Naval Division along with her sister ships Cesare Rossarol and Guglielmo Pepe, based at Venice.
[10] An Austro-Hungarian Navy force consisting of the scout cruiser Helgoland and the destroyers Balaton, Csepel, Lika, Orjen, Tatra, and Triglav left Cattaro on 18 October 1917 to attack Italian convoys.
At 06:30 on 19 October 1917, Alessandro Poerio, Guglielmo Pepe, and the destroyers Insidioso, Pilade Bronzetti, and Simone Schiaffino got underway from Brindisi to pursue the Austro-Hungarians.
The destroyers Ippolito Nievo and Rosolino Pilo and the British light cruiser HMS Weymouth diverted from a voyage from Vlorë (known to the Italians as Valona) on the coast of the Principality of Albania to Brindisi to join the pursuit.
[10] On 2 October 1918 Alessandro Poerio, Cesare Rossarol, Gulglielmo Pepe, Ippolito Nievo, and Simone Schiaffino were at sea with the battleship Dante Alighieri and the scout cruiser Carlo Alberto Racchia to provide distant cover for a British and Italian naval bombardment of Durrës.
[12] The Nationalists viewed the Italian price as excessive given the age of the destroyers, which were reaching the end of their useful service lives,[12] and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini demanded payment in cash in foreign currency,[13] but after lengthy and difficult negotiations, the Nationalists agreed to buy Alessandro Peorio and Guglielmo Pepe for just over 5 million pesetas each.
[12] The flotilla was assigned to convoy escort duties, support to ground operations, the interdiction of merchant ships of the Spanish Republican faction, and antisubmarine patrols.
Capitán de fragata (Frigate Captain) Francisco Regalado Rodríguez, a future admiral and Minister of the Navy, took command of the flotilla on 5 December 1937.
[12] After repairs, Huesca put to sea from Palma de Mallorca for the first time on 14 December 1937, but her boilers soon caught fire and she had to return to base.
Seaworthy after additional repairs, Huesca made her first successful sortie, getting underway from Palma de Mallorca on 25 January 1938 to patrol the Spanish coast off Valencia with Velasco.
[12] The destroyers and gunboats thus missed the Battle of Cape Palos, in which a Spanish Republican Navy force sank Baleares on the night of 5–6 March.
[12] In the last days of August 1938, Huesca participated along with a large part of the Nationalist fleet in an operation to intercept the Spanish Republican Navy destroyer José Luis Díez.
[12][15] Huesca then returned to Palma de Mallorca in September 1938, continuing with blockade operations and capturing the motorsailer Arsenio off Castellón on the morning of 17 October 1938.
[12] On 11 December 1938, Huesca′s squadron and the cruiser division left Palma de Mallorca to patrol off Catalonia, but bad weather forced the ships into port at Pollensa.
On the morning of 22 October 1940 Huesca, Teruel, and the destroyer Churruca arrived in Barcelona carrying 100 students from the Naval School in San Fernando on a training voyage that visited several ports.