Leonardo da Vinci’s covered, gun-bearing military vehicle was an armored tank.
Leonardo designed the fighting vehicle around 1485, probably in the context of military engineering for powerful patrons such as Ludovico Sforza. Its conical, turtle-like cover was intended to protect the crew, while cannons projected around the vehicle’s lower perimeter. Internal hand cranks would turn the wheels and move the vehicle across the ground.
The design was never built for Renaissance warfare. It had serious practical problems, including great weight and a propulsion system that may have been arranged incorrectly in the surviving drawing. Some modern commentators suggest the apparent flaw may have been deliberate, allowing Leonardo to conceal or limit the design’s military usefulness.
Calling it a tank is convenient but anachronistic: the modern tank emerged during the First World War, more than four centuries later. Leonardo’s vehicle was instead an imaginative armored fighting machine that combined protection, mobility, and concentrated firepower.