The Cammell Laird Seabed crawler seems more to do with underwater construction than military matters.
From the House of Lords debate on Marine Science and Technology, 2nd July 1969:
Earl Bessborough "Another contract has been given, I believe, to Cammell Laird to study the requirements for underwater tools which are needed in connection with their underwater crawler, the prototype of which I saw at the recent exhibition in Brighton, mentioned by the noble Lord."
Lord Shackleton: "The Ministry of Technology has placed contracts on behalf of the Committee for various studies of problems in marine technology, and some have been with industry, notably a contract (and I think it was the noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, who referred to this), for the study of underwater tools for use with sea-bed vehicles and other submersibles, which has been placed with Cammell Laird."
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1969/jul/02/marine-science-and-technology-1
From the Journal of the Royal Navel Scientific Service, Vol.24, No 2, March 1969:
"Inspection of underwater pipelines, geological sampling for oil prospecting and many other oper- ations on the sea bed will be much easier when Cammell Laird have constructed their newly designed sea bed crawler. This tank-like 50 ton device will be floated to the working site, where it will lower its wheels and flood its ballast tanks until it is able to pull itself down to the bottom by winch, while attached to an anchor. Once the vehicle is on the bottom it will " weigh " only four tons and be capable of moving and working over large areas of rough terrain in depths to 200 metres. Pressure chambers for transferring divers will be included, and fully equipped quarters will be provided for all the crew. This work will be handled by a joint company set up by Cammell Laird and N.R.D.C."
http://traktoria.org/files/royal_naval_scientific_service/vol_24_no_2_march_1969.pdf
I'm Wirral based, so I'll see if I can have a dive (pardon the pun) into the archives in the new year...
Zeb
