The MS-24, after having been built in 1942, was assigned to the units of the 2nd Squadron, destined to participate in operations in the area of the Sicilian Channel. She was deployed to Sicily on 28 April 1943, leaving Marsala with her twin MS-34, and went to rescue the crew of the torpedo boat RN Climene, torpedoed by an enemy submarine off Marettimo, managing to save 40 sailors.
After the fall of the German and Italian units in Tunisia, she participated in the rescue of soldiers who had not been captured by the Allies, and was later deployed to Milazzo in July 1943, where she was sent to Gaeta for work; in the meantime, the Armistice was signed and the temporary foundation of the Co-Belligerent Italy was established, which would operate from Capri.
MS-24 would work with the Special Services Flotilla formed in Ischia in November 1943, participating in landing operations and recovery of informers beyond the German lines, i.e. risky missions to obtain information for hydrographic surveys and reconnaissance in the coastal sector between Anzio and Nettuno, where the Allies landed at the beginning of 22 January 1944, the following month, 16 February, she was transferred to the 5th MAS Flotilla and operated from Maddalena to Bastia for special missions in the German-occupied Tyrrhenian coast.
After the war, she remained in service in the Navy, being employed in the Adriatic, first by the Coastal Forces Group, i.e. the Motor Torpedo Boat Group Command.
In 1957 she went into a reserve to be modernised, MS-24 was renamed MV-612 later MS-612 and eventually MS-472.
MS-472
The MS-472 is a CRDA 60t (MS) motor torpedo boat. It received this designation after World War II, and is one of the 8 (out of 14 surviving) MS ships the Italian navy was allowed to keep after the war. The terms of the 1947 Paris peace treaty also required the removal of torpedo launchers, which were added back after Italy's entry to NATO. The two surving MS boats of the first series (which did not have the tail-mounted MAS-style torpedo tubes) were upgraded to the second-series spec.
The MS-472, MS-473, MS-474 and MS-481 received modernization work in 1956, creating the CRDA 60t Convertible with the goal of serving as a flexible unit able to function as a torpedo boat (1 forward 40 mm gun and 2 torpedo tubes), gun boat (2 x 40 mm guns), or a fast mine layer (1 forward 40 mm gun and minelayer). The ships received a new 3×1,500 hp pulpusion system, radio, radar, and a deck rearrangement and served in the 42nd torpedo squadron, mostly in the Adriatic. The MS-472 in game reperesents the torpedo boat configuration; the MS-473 represents the gun boat.
The MS-472 and MS-473 were put out of service in the late 1970s. MS-472 is on exhibit as a monument in Ravenna from 1981, while the MS-473 remains in storage at the Naval History Museum of Venice.
