Leonardo da Vinci designed an armored tank as a cone-shaped military machine equipped with cannons.
Leonardo drew the vehicle around 1487–1490 while working in Milan for Ludovico Sforza. Its sloping wooden shell was intended to deflect projectiles, while several cannons projected through openings around the lower edge. The design also included room for a small crew inside.
The vehicle was meant to move through the coordinated turning of internal cranks connected to wheels. Modern reconstructions have shown that the surviving drawing contains mechanical problems, including gears that would prevent the vehicle from moving as drawn. Some historians suggest the error may have been deliberate or accidental.
It is often called Leonardo’s tank, but it was a concept rather than a battlefield machine. It predates the first operational tanks by more than four centuries; modern tanks appeared during World War I.