racal electronics plc

In 1990 Racal Marine teamed up with the China Shipbuilding Trading Company to offer a modernised Type 037 Hainan-class hull as a corvette with Racal radars (obviously!), European guns and A/S torpedoes and Chinese C-801 SSMs. There were no takers.

Richard J. Aldrich’s recent book ‘GCHQ: An uncensored story of Britain’s most secret intelligence agency’ features some information on the planned Sigint ship of the 1960s. He gives a history elsewhere in the book about the operations of HMS Totem and Turpin in the 1950s. He goes on to say...