Leonardo da Vinci designed an armored tank in 1488 as a military vehicle carrying cannons.
His design showed a conical, turtle-like wooden shell covered with metal plates. Several light cannons projected through openings around the vehicle, allowing it to fire in multiple directions while protecting its crew.
The tank was intended to move using cranks connected to internal wheels. However, the surviving design appears to contain a gearing problem that would prevent the mechanism from working as drawn. Historians debate whether this was accidental or deliberate, since Leonardo’s military notebooks sometimes concealed technical details.
Leonardo’s vehicle was not a modern tank and was never built for battlefield use in his lifetime. It is important mainly as an early armored fighting-vehicle concept, created centuries before powered tanks appeared in World War I.