Leonardo da Vinci sketched an armored tank-like fighting vehicle with cannons arranged around a conical platform.
His design, recorded around 1487–1489, resembles a covered, circular vehicle with sloping armor. A crew inside would operate several light cannons positioned around the vehicle’s perimeter. The sloped exterior was intended to deflect incoming projectiles.
The machine was meant to move using cranks connected to wheels. Some modern accounts say the design contained a deliberate gearing error that would have prevented movement, possibly because Leonardo wanted to keep the idea from being copied. Historians debate whether the error was intentional or simply a result of the drawing’s complexity.
Leonardo’s vehicle was not a modern tank in the technical sense. It had no engine, turret, or tracked wheels, but its combination of armor, mobility, and mounted weapons makes “armored tank” the standard description.