Originally Posted by
rattman
All the RAN keep there is some patrol boats. And its gets visited by the USN every so often when bringing in equipment for the rotational marine force that spends 6 months there. Theres been talk for years that the USN is building a base there, but its a pretty ****ty location for one. That all said a large contract was let by the DOD for construction of a large tank farm for storage of fuel in the last few weeks
I thought the water round there and the Timor Sea was pretty shallow too?
Big, strong tides and currents.
Hard to get a big boat (in a submarine sense) in and out, treacherous on the way and easy for people who wanted to - to track arrivals and departures.
Only when you get over near West Timor, or east of the Gulf of Carpentaria that it starts to get really deep.