The plan of the operation was created in 1943 by Professor Heinrich Steinmann (1899–1969), an official at the Reich Air Ministry. A bombing raid was to destroy twelve turbines in water and steam power-plants near Moscow, Gorky, Tula, Stalinogorsk and under the Rybinsk Reservoir, as well as to attack certain substations, transmission lines and factories. If the attack were to succeed in destroying just two thirds of the turbines it would have knocked out about 75 percent of the power used by the Soviet defence industry. Only two smaller energy centers behind the Urals and in the Soviet Far East would have been left intact. At this time, the Soviet Union had no turbine manufacturing capabilities and the only repair facility (in Leningrad) had been heavily damaged.
