Australian and US forces found little resistance as they laid siege to a town in Queensland this week.

The minimal response was due to the fact it was a replica town created for military exercises only, the combined forces of both countries have been conducting manoeuvres and war games all week as part of the training operation 'Talisman Sabre'.   

More than 28,000 personnel are involved in the exercise, which covers all three military branches. For the raid on the faux-town, shipping crates were set up to represent buildings with troops flying in on Black Hawk helicopters.

US Chief Petty Officer Frank Migliaccio said things were lively on the sea too: “It is pretty busy here - we have 2,000 sailors and Marines on board and we have constant activity... we have safe quarters where we constantly see the hovercraft coming in and out of the ship doing a lot of different things... We have the MB22 helicopter planes... they're in pretty high gear right now ... I don't know if we're at the peak but we're definitely doing a lot every day.”

The large-scale joint military exercise has not been without incident though, it sparked concern earlier this week with reports a US fighter had been forced to offload four bombs into an area of ocean very near the Great Barrier Reef, the military has made assurances they will not explode.

Two protestors entered the Shoalwater Bay military training area on Tuesday, prompting the Greens to call for a halt to exercises to ensure the safety of the activists wandering around a live-fire area. Reports say the two were arrested on Wednesday.