Leonardo da Vinci’s armored vehicle resembled a tank.
Drawn around 1485, the fighting vehicle had a conical cover inspired partly by a tortoise shell. It was intended to protect soldiers while carrying several light guns around its perimeter. The machine would have moved on wheels driven by cranks and gears operated from inside.
The vehicle was never built for Leonardo’s patrons, and the surviving design has a famous mechanical problem: the gearing as commonly drawn would make the wheels turn in opposite directions. Some historians have suggested that this may have been an intentional error, a design revision, or a copying issue, but the purpose cannot be proved with certainty.
Calling it a tank is a modern comparison, not Leonardo’s own term. It lacked the engine, tracked propulsion, and battlefield technology of twentieth-century tanks. Nevertheless, its armored body, internal crew space, and mounted weapons make the comparison useful when explaining the concept to modern readers.