Re:mines

"Maybe HMS Audacious (lost in the Irish Sea 27/10/14) - don't know how
many
she hit, but the damage caused was apparantly quite light".

Yeah, I missed that one.  I bet that one made the boys at the admiralty
mighty jumpy.  ("we spent how much on all these damn dreadnaughts?")

Would you count Viribus Unitis, QE & Valiant, all sunk by limpit mines
(albeit temporarily for the last 2)?

Hmmm...true.  Don't know how you'd make a limpit mine work in FT (as
with
u-boats, no water to hide under).

"Ah - I found one!  Spanish dreadnought Alfonso XIII (later Espana) hit
a
single mine & sank 30/4/37.  Mind you, she was the smallest Dreadnought
ever
built & (to quote Conways) her 'speed, protection and freeboard [were]
well
below average'."

Yeah - not much more than an over-gunned pre-dreadnaught, really. And
armament was weak at that (8 12-inch guns?)  Actually I think Lord
Nelson
and Agammemnon (last British pre-dreads) may have had similar, if not
greater displacement.

"I did War Studies for three years at University.  I have no idea what
to do
for a living with it, but I have accumulated a vast amount of
interesting
books on ships . . ."

There's always TV documentaries, which is how I've put my vast store of
trivia to mercenary use.