Leonardo da Vinci designed a scythed chariot with blades mounted on rotating wheels.
His drawing shows a horse-drawn vehicle equipped with long scythes that would sweep around the chariot as the wheels turned. The proposed mechanism was intended to threaten soldiers near the vehicle and demonstrate how rotary motion could be converted into a weapon. Leonardo’s broader military work frequently combined familiar battlefield forms with elaborate mechanical systems.
The concept was not an entirely new type of weapon. Scythed chariots had appeared in ancient warfare, especially in descriptions of Persian and Hellenistic armies. Leonardo’s version belongs to the Renaissance tradition of revisiting classical military ideas with new engineering details.
There is no dependable evidence that his design was built and used in combat. It also differed from his armored vehicle, which was a protected wheeled machine with guns. The scythed chariot’s defining feature is the rotating cutting apparatus attached to its wheels.