LMFAO! - Ed.) Wikipedia sez three bow tubes and 5 torps. Would like to see a picture of the other tubes open just to know how they did it, crafty Kraut buggers!"
Oh My God, Gus, but you're a riot, buddy! And I think I can show you (almost) exactly what you are looking for:
Click on Image to Enlarge
______________FULL RES) that these caps in fact flipped upward - into recessed pockets - just like eyelids!
Exhibit I appears at right: a Type-II interior profile drawing, which at full resolution (inset) shows a dotted half-circle just ahead of-, and extending above, the outboard (starboard-side) tube-end - undoubtedly indicating the travel arc of the opening tube cap. (And smaller half-circle just below it indicates a rounded cap over the recessed, centerline tube, as well.)
Although this is all the evidence I could find relating specifically to Type-IIs, it is not the end of evidence for "flipping eyelid"-type tube doors, in use by these "crafty Kraut buggers" :
Click on Image to Enlarge
______________FULL RES
But you don't have to rely on my reasoning:
Here - again on U-505, during transport (it looks like, to its new, enclosed exhibit) - the starboard stern tube door has now been opened - proving of course that it does indeed retract - and you can even see a fringe of the cap at the top, still protruding slightly - again, just exactly like a (mammalian) eyelid!
I did not (yet) find any closeups of the Type-VII stern, whose single centerline tube was deeply recessed, just like the centerline bow tube of the Type-II. However I would bet dollars to donuts that both were nearly identical: with a hemispheric cap for a door, which flipped upward/backward, into an overhead pocket. Even if these centerline tubes were somewhat different, however, it seems conclusive that "eyelid-type" tube doors were employed by (at least) the outboard tubes of the Type-II design, and continued in use for stern tubes of (at least some) later designs.
Now, try sucking that with your Hand-Billy!
Cheers,
-Matty
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