Looking at the excellent photos of Little Willie, that "Herbschi" posted on the Layout thread, I noticed the torn armour by the rectangular, right hand front vision port & across the circular "machinegun" port. Anybody know how this damage was caused?
Looking at the photo on Little Willie's article, captioned "Little Willie" SEPT 1915, the tear by the vision port appears to be there, I'm not sure about the damage to the circular port.
David Fletcher IIRC says it might have been towed by passing a hawser into one port and out the other. The metal wasn't strong enough, and therefore tore.
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"Sometimes things that are not true are included in Wikipedia. While at first glance that may appear like a very great problem for Wikipedia, in reality is it not. In fact, it's a good thing." - Wikipedia.
I was told by someone at the Museum that it was towed with a chain and the damage was done long before the Museum acquired the vehicle.
The decision was made to leave it as found.
I thought that might have been the case, looking at the damage. Must have been very early in its history, as it's not damaged in this photo, goo.gl/images/jxmMP6 which I assume is taken during the trials at Hatfield in early 1916 & this one, goo.gl/images/YpzCVX, which I assume is wrongly captioned at being September 1915, with its steering tail missing.
It has been suggested that the damage, most likely made by a towing cable, might have been caused trying to tow Willie away for scrap. But he was stuck fast and the attempt abandoned after the cab metal tore. Possibly at about the time that Mother, already largely stripped, and other WW1 survivors went to the breaker's yard.