Page 74 - All About History - Issue 11-14

Da Vinci’s genius inventions

THE MACHINE GUN Breach-loading
By using a breach-loading
design, da Vinci had almost
halved the time it took to
reload and fire the cannon.
A rapid-fire weapon designed to cause carnage on the battlefield
unpowder weapons gained flaw in its effectiveness in battle, so drew
greater prominence on up designs of guns featuring several barrels
battlefields throughout that could be reloaded quickly. He designed
the Renaissance period, and produced a range of gun prototypes
Ggradually becoming more featuring breach-loading barrels, meaning
accurate as models were refined and the operator wouldn’t have to walk around
improved. Da Vinci conceived many of his the front of the gun to load it, which was
now-famous weapons of war while under dangerous and time-consuming.
the patronage of Ludovico Sforza, the Duke One of his designs features three
of Milan, who sought to gain the upper separate, rotating rows of 11 barrels Fan fire
hand over his enemies in battle. Italy in this that could be fired, loaded and cooled This fan design was intended
to spread the gun’s arc of fire
period wasn’t the unified country we know in quick succession, dramatically as wide as possible, resulting
in a rapid and widespread
today, but rather a series of individual city speeding up the rate of fire. Another burst of missiles.
states in bitter rivalry with one another. sketch features a fan-like layout,
These cities were also at constant threat spreading several barrels in an arc that
from nation states, meaning that conflict and could devastate enemy ranks if fired at
war were never far from people’s minds, so once or in rapid succession, something
new weapons were in constant development. unseen in the world up until that point.
He saw the long period of time it took to While these innovations aren’t machine
prepare and reload a cannon as a major guns in our modern understanding, they
signalled the beginning of a new age of
warfare. Though a pacifist at heart, da
Vinci had codified a killing machine that
would change the face of war.

Verdict Rapid fire
With three separate rows
Though a pacifist at heart, of guns on a rotating
frame, the barrels could be
this terrible invention signals
loaded, cooled and fired in
da Vinci’s capitulation to quick succession, allowing
pursuing one of humanity’s multiple shots to be taken
in short time.
grimmer aspirations: more
effective and terrible means
problems that made cannons “ Da Vinci had codified a
for murder. Identifying all the
so impractical, such as slow killing machine that would
reloading and overheating,
device decades into the future. change the face of war”
the inventor had advanced a
This early machine gun would have
caused major damage to its targets
THE ROBOT KNIGHT

An intricate contraption to delight and astound

Today, we may be developing movement. The knight was able to Verdict
robots with ever-increasing levels sit, stand and even raise its visor. Da
There is perhaps no
of artificial intelligence and Vinci’s thorough understanding of better example of the
flexibility, but these are only the human anatomy certainly helped
polymath’s mastery, of
latest incarnations of the automaton, him produce such a lifelike creation. both the fields of art
invented by Leonardo some 500 The notes on the automaton were and science, than the
years ago. It is believed he first so cryptic it’s only relatively recently automaton. Again only
thought of his invention in 1495. that engineers, most notably robotics used as an amusing trifle
This robot, with the external expert Mark Rosheim, have been for his peers, it’s a shame
that the great inventor
appearance of a Germanic knight, able to decipher and follow his would certainly never
contained two separate operating plan, which have in fact directly have guessed what
systems of gears and pulleys, influenced modern-day robot brilliant machines his Not only was da Vinci’s robot design lifelike, it
could also move about entirely independently
each capable of several degrees of designs for NASA. design would inspire.

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