I know of it - I've probably got the book you refer to! I certainly have a book from the 70s with an illustration of it. I've attached images I've found on the net over the years - the model appears to be in a museum in Venice.
Grillo was the name of an individual boat (it means Cricket; four were built, all named after jumping insects), not a designation of a type - the type was known as the Barchino Saltatore, which I think means Jumping Boat. There's an Italian wiki entry here:
Anyone have any interest in bo-ats, or just in landships?
I ask because I've just found out very simple details of an Italian WW1 MAS boat named Grillo and wondered if anyone knows any more about it.
I first saw an illustration of the thing some years ago on the dust jacket of a seventies book about the war at sea - but, infuriatingly, the book made absolutely NO mention of what it was.
It seems to have been a motor torpedo boat, but an amphibious one, with spiked chains running around the hull on each side to presumably haul itself onto land.
Molto grazie gents. I must say, the idea of slowly crawling over a torpedo net or some such obstacle seems okay, but 4 knots??
According to the translator, two of the four tank-boats were scuttled in April '18, Grillo was destroyed by fire, so only one survived the war, being dismantled in the early twenties.
The first pic is particularly handy, as it shows the deck.
Tankcommander, your second photo looks to have been taken in a museum, yet Italian Wikipedia said that Grillo was burned in 1918; is the photo of a replica/large scale model, or did enough of the boat survive to be preserved?