The common name for Leonardo da Vinci’s armored, conical battlefield vehicle is a tank.
Leonardo designed the fighting vehicle around 1487, probably while seeking military employment in Milan. Its sloping, turtle-like armored shell was intended to deflect incoming projectiles, while wheels inside the structure were to move the vehicle across the battlefield.
The design included openings for weapons and was associated with a crew operating multiple cannons. A well-known drawing shows the vehicle as a covered platform with a broad circular base and a conical top.
It was never built for Renaissance warfare, and historians have debated whether the drawing contains an intentional mechanical flaw. Some modern reconstructions suggest the vehicle could move if its gear arrangement were corrected. Calling it a “tank” is retrospective: modern tanks emerged during the First World War, centuries after Leonardo’s design.