Alpino was powered by two sets of triple expansion steam engines fed by three Thornycroft water-tube boilers, producing an estimated 6,000 indicated horsepower (4,474 kW) and driving two propeller shafts.

Hit repeatedly, seriously damaged, and on fire, with four members of her crew killed in action and numerous other crewmen wounded, Antalya struck her colors and ran herself aground on a nearby beach.

[4][5][6][7][8] In a 1912 magazine article[9] and a 1913 book[10] based on contemporary sources, United States Navy Commodore W. H. Beehler offers a different version of the events of 29 September 1911.

Hit 15 times and on fire, Tokad beached herself near Nicopolis and was totally destroyed, with her commanding officer and eight of her sailors either killed by the Italian gunfire or drowned.

[9][10] The battle continued on the morning of 30 September 1911 when, according to some sources, Alpino was operating off Igoumenitsa with other Italian ships when they sighted a force of Ottoman torpedo boats leaving Preveza.

When they reported the sighting to higher command, they received orders to let the torpedo boats move away from the coast and then, taking advantage of the greater speed of the Italian ships, close with them and sink them.

[8] The Italian ships managed to surround the torpedo boats, which at that point attempted to escape at full steam towards the south instead of heading back toward Preveza.

[8] The Italians found this suspicious, and while Artigliere and the destroyer Corazziere pursued the torpedo boats, Alpino steamed north to conduct a reconnaissance of the approaches to Preveza.

Alpino soon discovered that the Ottoman torpedo boats were heading south to draw the Italians away from ships which appeared to be trying to reach Preveza unscathed.

She turned out to be the steamer Newa (or Neua) with a Greek captain and crew but carrying Ottoman troops (five officers and 162 soldiers) and a load of ammunition and grain.

[12] Beehler again provides a different narrative, stating that Artigliere and Corazziere penetrated the harbor at Preveza and sank Alpagot and Hamidiye while the two torpedo boats were at anchor, without mentioning Alpino or her activities.

[16] On 24 May 1915, the day after Italy's declaration of war, Alpino, Carabiniere, Fuciliere, and their sister ships Garibaldino and Lanciere conducted a patrol in the upper Adriatic Sea.

[16] On 29 May 1915 Alpino, Corazziere, and Pontiere provided support to a formation of destroyers composed of Artigliere, Bersagliere, Garibaldino, and Lanciere as it bombarded the Adria Werke chemical plant in Monfalcone, a production site for poison gases.

[16] Supported by Alpino, Fuciliere, and the coastal torpedo boats 40 PN and 46 OS, Zeffiro, under the command of Capitano di fregata (Frigate Captain) Costanzo Ciano and with Lieutenant Nazario Sauro, an Italian irredentist, aboard as pilot, entered the port of Poreč on the western side of Istria, a peninsula on Austria-Hungary's coast, at dawn on 12 May 1916.