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Originally Posted by RN7
I think you might be confusing the significance of Pine Gap which is near Alice Springs by thinking or stating that it is the location of a major US weapons and munitions depot.
The US intelligence and satellite tracking station of Pine Gap is located 11 miles (18km) south-west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territiry. The reason it is located in Australia is because it controls US ISR (spy) satellites as they pass over this portion of the globe which includes China, the Middle East and the Asian part of Russia. The reason why the US established an intelligence and satellite tracking station at Pine Gap is because it is so remote and so far inland that passing spy ships cannot intercept US signal traffic.
But for what reason would the US establish a major military munitions depot at such a remote and not easily accessible location as Alice Springs when (1) there are more suitable locations in other parts of Australia, and (2) when the US already has Military Prepositioning Ship (MPS) squadron at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and at Guam in the north-western Pacific.
Also if the US has a military munitions depot in Alice Springs then the US and Australian governments would have established a logistical capacity to rapidly redeploy such weapons and munitions from Alice Springs, such as building long runways so that US heavy transport aircraft could land and take off safely. For a fully loaded heavy transport aircraft such as C-5 Galaxy or a Boeing 747 freighter to safely take off you are going to need a runway of 10,000 feet, or maybe even longer. Alice Springs Airport has two runways, the longest is 7,999 feet. The nearest suitable runway for US heavy transport aircraft in the Northern Territory is Darwin International Airport (also RAAF Base Darwin), and to a lesser extent RAAF Base Tindal in Katherine, both located at the top end of the Northern Territory and nearly 1,000 miles from Alice Springs.
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I am trying to recollect a phone conversation I had with my Branch in 2002. I could well be wrong on Alice Springs. This was for a prepositioned muntions stockpile in Australia. My request was denied, the MP position was E8 and the other personnel were Supply. There were less than 10 Americans assigned so this could well be a joint facility.