I thought the Lysander WAS used by the Combine . When assembling the infrastructure of a planet having most of military targets on a pennisula makes it better to defend.
I am not sure what this is responding to, but in case it is to my comment about the combine not being as experienced at fortifying the oceans as the fed suns:
The Lysander is a combine vessel, but I was referring to Hans Davion's underwater fortifications throughout his territory before the 4th succession war. The fed suns have been going for a much larger underwater military for a lot longer, from what I can see, at least from their defenses.
Comparatively the Laysander was introduced in 3047, and it's only major actions I know about are against ghost bears and word of blake. The Lysander also works quite a bit differently and is far more vulnerable to the enemy than the Nemo, and it's about a quarter the size.
The Lysander is an aircraft carrier and must surface to deliver it's aircraft, and can even support them with flak fire from it's arrow IVs. The Nemo doesn't carry aircraft, not even VTOLs or Wiges. It carries more submarines. It doesn't have to surface to engage it's enemies. It can not only engage surface, airborne, and even spaceborne targets while submerged, but in order to engage it back you almost have to be submerged yourself. A place where it's 150 carried submarines are gonna take a toll on any force that tries it. It's enough over kill that it can spare a lot of that force for cargo and general support.
That is why I am saying it is more of a mobile fortress than anything else. Both the Nemo and the Lysander go the same speed, but they have very different purposes, and one doesn't negate the need for the other. The Nemo is closer to filling the role of a castle brian than the role the Lysander fills. It's meant more to be a nigh unassailable place to attack from. Now, give my Nemo an escort of a few Lysanders, which can handle some of the supply burden on the ship, and any attacker would be hard-pressed to be able to drop a force that could actually hunt the group down.
In comparison to what I did for the Fedsuns, the von Trapp reinforces hans' remaining underwater bases the same way a sniper can reinforce front line troops. Sure one on one against other canon water forces it is terrifying, but between it's ability to engage basically anything that can be fielded, and it's ability to disappear underwater with it's stealth armor, and it's high speed allowing it to strike again in unforeseen ways, the two fight in very, very different ways. The Nemo is more focused on defeating an enemy in a stand-up fight, and being all but impossible to take down, where the von Trapp is a cunning beast that will traumatize an attacker with it's unpredictability. The von Trap also doesn't need to be the underwater hardpoint, since for the federated suns, those were already well established long before the von Trapp was ever built.
When I said, the Fedsuns were more experienced at fortifying their oceans that is the sort of thing I was thinking of. I was also thinking that the Nemo was being built by a combination of cultures that loved honor duels. While the DC may not be as bad as the clans about expecting quick engagements, I figured this would be a good way to show their influence. I didn't want to build a flawless vehicle. I wanted to incorporate a weakness and a supply deficiency seemed like a good way to go to me, especially with the ways it could make up that deficiency via it's carried vessels and possible escorts. It is a weakness that can be exploited if the enemy learns of it. I also thought that with it being a vertitable fortress, making it's weakness essentially laying siege to it would be a more interesting weakness.
Future plans to further shore up this weakness would probably be along the lines of it's namesake. Captain Nemo supplied his fictional submarine from undersea farming. Building an undersea hydroponics and supply chain on worlds that housed these would be a way of furthering the fortification with the planet.
Now, I sort of rambled, so I hope that all makes sense to you, if something didn't, please feel free to ask for clarifications.