Leonardo da Vinci sketched an armored fighting vehicle commonly described as a tank.
His design, drawn around 1487–1489, was a conical, turtle-like vehicle covered with protective armor. It was intended to move across a battlefield while its occupants operated guns through openings around the structure. Several soldiers inside would turn cranks connected to wheels.
The vehicle is often called Leonardo’s tank, but that label is modern. Leonardo did not use the twentieth-century military meaning of “tank,” and the machine was never constructed for combat. The surviving drawing also contains a likely mechanical problem: the gearing, as commonly interpreted, would make the wheels turn in conflicting directions unless corrected.
The sketch demonstrates Leonardo’s interest in combining armor, mobility, and concentrated firepower. It should be understood as a Renaissance military concept rather than the direct ancestor of a fully practical modern tank.