Amphibious Mobility Group (GRUMA)

The Commander and personnel of the Amphibious Mobility Group welcome you to this webpage and invite you to get to know this Marine Corps Unit, so essential for the MC Brigade training and the conduction of operations.

Our Headquarters are in San Carlos, near San Fernando, Cádiz, sharing facilities with other Marine Corps Groups.

The current workforce of the GRUMA consists of 400 marines: 1 lieutenant-colonel, 18 officers, 26 NCOs and 355 soldiers.

The GRUMA is made up of the following Companies:

• Service and Staff Company.
• Amphibious Assault Vehicles Company.
• Craft Company.
• Combat Sapper Company.
• Beach Movement Company.

The Service and Staff Company includes the personnel and materiel in charge of all administrative and maintenance support aspects.

The Amphibious Assault Vehicles Company provides, along with the Craft Company, the Landing assets of the Brigade. The Company currently employs AAV 7A1 ehicles which offer the first waves of Rifle Companies, the necessary protection during landings. It also has communication and recovery vehicles.

The Craft Company, has semi-rigid SUPERCAT, boats for ship-to-shore movements. This type of boat is used in a wide variety of missions, among them all-weather, fast and stealthy insertion and extraction of MC units beyond the horizon.

The Combat Sapper Company provides the Brigade with the necessary mobility, counter-mobility and protection. An ambitious procuring program intends to equip the Company with new EOD materiel, PIRAHNA III - type sapper vehicles and materiel to open up corridors to pave the way for landings.

The Beach Movement Company is the General Support sapper company in charge of preparing the beach for amphibious landings and improvised heliports. To carry out these tasks, the company has a variety of machinery like power generators, diggers, bulldozers, forklifts, tipcarts, etc.

In turn, the Beach Movement Company is structured into:

• Staff: Company command.
• Beach Movement Platoon: Provides personnel and materiel in support of the landing elements.
• Support Platoon: It provides personnel and machinery for beach movements.
• NBC Platoon: Reconnaissance of NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical) contaminated areas. Provides decontaminating assets.

The Amphibious Mobility Group (GRUMA) is a combat support unit of the MC Brigade. It is equipped with specialized organic assets for ship-to-shore movements of Landing Forces with amphibious craft and vehicles. It is also entrusted with combat mobility, counter-mobility, protection and explosive disposal tasks.

Our daily activities are aimed at training sappers, craft and amphibious vehicles crews and riflemen, without neglecting physical training and exercises.

We have ample materiel, vehicles and machinery. Maintenance of those assets is an important part of our daily life.

We often collaborate with different Rifle Companies of the MC Brigade (BRIMAR) in support, mobility and protection tasks. We also train with craft and amphibious vehicles.

Like the rest of Marine Corps units, the GRUMA has a wide assortment of pistols, HK G-36-E rifles, MG42 machineguns, HK G-36-KV rifles, AG-G36 grenade launchers and MINIMI and BROWNING machineguns.

Vehicles and machinery:

• Nissan NAVARA, PATHFINDER, PATROL and TERRANO.
• HUMMER 1097 (Shelter) and 1038 (Cargo).
• IVECO-PEGASO trucks.
• IVECO Crane Lorries.
• Amphibious assault vehicles AAV.
• DH-7, DH-6 and DH-4 bulldozers.
• BOBCAT mini-trucks.
• COMATSU forklifts.
• CATERPILLAR diggers.
• LIFTKING and CASE forklifts.
• IVECO and PEGASO tipcarts.
• S-CAT semi-rigid craft.
• Habitability containers.

The GRUMA is present in all BRIMAR national and international exercises and operations (ADELFIBEX, ANFIBEX, PHIBLEX, CRISEX, MEDATEX, ESPABRAS, etc).

These are some of the most important real operations:

• The humanitarian aid operation in Central America in the aftermath of hurricane "Mitch" (NOV 1998 − JAN 1999).
• Haiti (Operation MINUSHTA).
• The Lebanon (Operation LIBRE HIDALGO).
• Bosnia-Herzegovina (Operations ALTHEA, SFOR and KFOR).
• Haiti. Operation HISPANIOLA from January 2010 to May 2010 collaborating in the reconstruction of the country after the 2010 earthquake.

The Amphibious Mobility Group (GRUMA) was set up when the Tercio de Armada was restructured with the requirement for all MC combat support units to merge in just one Group.