What military vehicle did Leonardo da Vinci design with blades around its wheels?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a scythed chariot with blades mounted around its wheels.

A scythed chariot is a vehicle fitted with long blades or scythes intended to strike people or animals as the chariot moved. Leonardo’s drawing shows a four-wheeled platform with rotating cutting blades connected to the wheel system. The concept belongs to his studies of military machinery and battlefield devices.

Leonardo’s design was not an invention of the general idea. Scythed chariots had been associated with ancient warfare, especially in descriptions of Persian and Hellenistic armies. His contribution was a Renaissance redesign that used mechanical transmission to make the blades rotate as the vehicle advanced.

The machine is often confused with Leonardo’s armored vehicle, whose defining feature was a protective conical shell and internal cranks. The scythed chariot had exposed cutting blades and a different tactical purpose. Like many of Leonardo’s military sketches, it is best understood as a proposed design rather than a documented, successfully deployed weapon.