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Operation Eisenhammer was planned as a powerful air attack by the Luftwaffe with approx. 80 S2 Mistel-bomber combinations (Fw 190/Ju 88) against the electricity generation system of Russia. The weak point of the Soviet armament production factories in the Moscow and Gorky areas was the lack of manufacturing capacity to produce turbines for the steam and hydroelectric generating stations. Much of the equipment in use seems orginally to have been bought from Germany before the war. If the power stations could have been put out of actions, large sections of the Soviet industry would have been forced to cease work until the turbines could be replaced or repaired, according to the German planners. Eisenhammer was originally planned for the spring of 1944, but due to the loss of airfields for the involved German He-111-bombers in Western Russia postponed. In December 1944 the operation was revived (this time to be executed by Mistel-combinations), expanded in scope and rescheduled for the following spring (in March 1945). Targets were the dozen steam and hydro-electric power stations around Moscow, including those at Tula, Stalinogorsk and Gorsky, also to be attacked were the dam and turbine installations at Rybinsk to the north-east of Moscow, if the dam were breached it was estimated that the level of the Wolga would rise by several feet and cause severe flooding of the Wolga basin. The Mistel combinations were to take off from airfields in East Prussia after dark and attack their targets at first light the following morning. Pathfinders would fly ahead of the Mistels, dropping flares to mark the route to the targets. Other pathfinders would drop flares to illuminate the targets for attack.

According to Wikipedia"'To accomplish the goal Mistel long-range bombers were to be employed. To destroy water turbines special floating mines called Sommerballon ("summer balloon") were to be dropped into the water and then pulled by the current straight into the turbines.' Not sure how this fits into the employment of Mistel combinations, but okay.

After the mission the surviving Fw 190s would land on airfields in the Courland pocket in Lithuania. This information comes out of the book 'The last year of the Luftwaffe May 1944 to May 1945' by Alfred Price. This is not the only source that mentions this operation.

Quite an operation and planned in all earnest. What if this operation was launched in March 1945 as planned? It wouldn't have delayed the inevitable for Germany, but could it have inflicted the by the Germans expected damage on the Soviet industry?
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