Despite the fact that Raeder and other senior naval officers envisioned using Bismarck and Tirpitz as commerce raiders against first French and later British shipping in the Atlantic, and in fact used them in that role during World War II, the ships were not designed for that mission. Their steam turbines did not afford the necessary cruising radius for such a role, and many of the decisions made for the ships' armament and armor layout reflect the expectation to fight a traditional naval battle at relatively close range in the North Sea. The disconnect between how Bismarck and Tirpitz were designed and how they were ultimately used represents the strategic incoherence that dominated German naval construction in the 1930s.[6][17]