Hi Simon,
Been away for a few days so just catching up on things. I presume the bridge deck on the VIIC/41s was wood, just like the earlier boats.
Good work on the Atlantic bow!
I don't know much about Type IXs but I think some or all of the UZOs on the IXs were offset by a good distance to port. If I recall correctly, on the Revell kit the UZO was placed slightly to the port. There was much discussion about this when Revell first released the kit. The consensus at the time was that Revell got this wrong on their model.
But I've seen a post war photo of U 995 in which the UZO does look very slightly offset to port in relation to the persicopes. I would have thought they would have wanted to keep the UZO central, given its function in aiming torpedoes? Could you email the U 586 and U 765 photos? They would be interesting to see.
I'm convinced that the earliest VIICs had the UZO in the centre. Photos of the tower of the VIIB U 86 are excellent as they permit clear views from the rear of the UZO and both periscopes. And the well known VIIB schematic has the UZO in the centre. Other boats like U 552 and U 564 it looks in the centre.
However, there is a VIID schematic where the UZO is to the port side...
Cheers,
Dougie