Leonardo da Vinci sketched an early armored vehicle commonly called a tank.
His fighting vehicle design, created around 1487–1489, shows a conical, turtle-like protective shell mounted on wheels. The shell was intended to deflect enemy fire, while several light cannons projected through openings around its perimeter.
The vehicle was to be moved by people turning internal cranks connected to the wheels. Historians debate whether the drawing contains a deliberate mechanical error, because the proposed gear arrangement would not move the vehicle as shown. That uncertainty makes the design more complicated than a simple prediction of a modern tank.
Leonardo’s vehicle was not built as a battlefield machine in the fifteenth century. The word “tank” belongs to much later military history, but the nickname is widely used because the armored, wheeled concept resembles a tank in broad outline. Modern tanks combine armor, engines, tracks or wheels, and a turret, features absent from Leonardo’s design.