(Yes, I am ashamed of myself for that title)
Leonardo da Vinci, patron saint of ingenious gadgets and insufferable historical conspiracy theories, designed a human- and horse-powered tank, which was never built, perhaps because battlefields rarely offerered the billiards-table landscape required for it to actually move. This scale model, on display in Sofia, Bulgaria, shows how it would have looked. Link
The indefatigable daVinci was commissioned 500 years ago to construct an enormous bronze horse for Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. It was to be the largest equine statue ever built, standing 24 feet high. Leonardo’s full-scale clay model was destroyed by war and the bronze horse was never constructed. The goals of the Leonardo da Vinci’s Horse project are “to honor the genius of Leonardo and pay homage to him by building a colossal horse based on his drawings; to recognize all Italians for enriching every aspect of our society by presenting The Horse to the Italian people as a gift from the American people.”
Bridlepath 
oh my! the statue of that horse is HUGE. cool
[…] (Yes, I am ashamed of myself for that title) Leonardo da Vinci, patron saint of ingenious gadgets and insufferable historical conspiracy theories, designed a human- and horse-powered tank, which was never built, perhaps because battlefields rarely offerered the billiards-table landscape required for… – More – […]