Carabiniere 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.

[2] On the afternoon of 29 September Carabinieri took part in one of the first clashes of the war, the Battle of Preveza, when she, along with Alpino, the destroyers Artigliere and Zeffiro, and the torpedo boat Spica engaged the Ottoman Navy torpedo boats Antalya and Tokad as they attempted to leave the port of Preveza on what then was the Ionian Sea coast of the Ottoman Empire.

The Italian ships attacked the two torpedo boats at 14:00, and Artigliere seriously damaged Tokad and pursued her into the anchorage as she attempted to return to Preveza.

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.

[3][4][5][6][7] In a 1912 magazine article[8] and a 1913 book[9] 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.

[8][9] On 5 October 1911, a motorboat from Artigliere that had been searching an Austro-Hungarian mail steamer in the harbor at Shëngjin (known to the Italians as San Giovanni de Medua) on the coast of Albania came under fire from field guns in an earthwork.

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

[11] On the night of 13–14 August 1917 Carabiniere left Venice with Pontiere and the destroyers Animoso, Ardente, Audace, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Giuseppe Sirtori, and Vincenzo Giordano Orsini to intercept an Austro-Hungarian force made up of the destroyers Dinara, Reka, Sharfschutze, Streiter, and Velebit and six torpedo boats which had supported an air raid by 32 aircraft against the fortress of Venice which had struck San Giovanni e Paolo Hospital, killing 14 people and injuring around 30 others.