The Dalek Flying Saucer was one of the most common shapes of Dalek ships. The fleet of the Dalek Empire during the Time War was composed of about ten million ships. The largest one served as flagship for the Dalek Emperor.
History
In their first attempts to obtain space travel, the Daleks built prototype ships such as Proto 1, 4, and 9. Proto 13 had a flying saucer design, was successful in take off, space flight, and entering/exiting hyperspace. It became the standard Dalek ship. (TV21: The Amaryll Challenge)
The Daleks used saucers when invading planets, including the 22nd century Dalek invasion of Earth. Each saucer was under the command of a Dalek Saucer Commander. (DW: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
The saucers were also used by the Dalek Empire during the Second Dalek War of the 26th century. One saucer, named the Exterminator, was a supreme Exterminator-class flagship belonging to the Dalek Inquisitor General, Dalek X. When the Exterminator was destroyed, the Dalek fleet was pushed right back from Earth-Space. (NSA: Prisoner of the Daleks)
After the Dalek war, some time during the 27th century (REF: Doctor Who: The Dalek Handbook) A Dalek saucer travelled to the planet Exxilon in search of parrinium where all of its power was taken by the Exxilon City. When the power was restored, the ship took off but was destroyed by Dan Galloway, who stowed away on the ship with a bomb, which he detonated. (DW: Death to the Daleks)
During the Last Great Time War each sphere contained about two thousand Daleks each and were small and bronze-coloured, the same colour as the drone Daleks of that time. The flagship was the same colour but many times larger and contained both standard Daleks and the Emperor's Personal Guards. It could fire projectile weaponry. (DW: Bad Wolf)
The Daleks launched over a thousand Dalek Saucers into the Time Vortex. These forces were stopped by the Doctor who left them trapped in the vortex. (BFA: The Time of the Daleks) The Time Lords later made a deal with the Daleks that allowed them to leave the Time Vortex (BFA: Neverland)
On Gallifrey during the last day of the Last Great Time War, dozens of crashed Dalek saucers lay near the badly damaged Capitol of the Time Lords. (DW: The End of Time)
At the end of the Last Great Time War, the Eighth Doctor caused all of the fleet to burn away except one, the Emperor's flagship, which fell through time to the the turn of the 2002nd century. The Dalek Emperor built two hundred ships of his fleet and created half a million new Daleks to rule. These were all destroyed by the Bad Wolf entity.(DW: Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways)
The New Dalek Empire used saucers with a modified appearance in their 2009 invasion of Earth. Though the Daleks themselves could fly and had personal weaponry, smaller versions of the saucers served as fighter craft. (DW: The Stolen Earth)
One of these ships survived the the conclusion of the 2009 Invasion of Earth, and fell through time to 1941. When the three surviving Daleks onboard were confronted by the Doctor, they used a beacon on the ship to activate all the lights in London, leaving it vulnerable to German blitz. Enhanced spitfires were sent to destroy the beacon. Three were destroyed by the Dalek defence guns mounted around the Saucer, but the Eleventh Doctor disabled the ship's shields and the dish was destroyed. When their plan to detonate the Oblivion Continuum failed, the new Daleks left in their ship through a Time corridor. (DW: Victory of the Daleks)
A single Dalek saucer was used by a platoon of Daleks to recover their lost Time Axis from the SS Lucy Grey. The ship was fired into the sun. (VG: Return to Earth)
Dalek saucers were used on the attack on Station 7 when the Daleks conducted a search for "the Abomination". They disguised their saucers as asteroids which they discarded when the attack began. All were destroyed - save one, which was used by an SSS officer to travel home - when caught in a deliberate volcanic eruption. (GN: The Only Good Dalek)
When the Daleks joined The Alliance formed to imprison The Doctor in the Pandorica to save the Universe, many Dalek Saucers were part of the Alliance fleet which arrived at Stonehenge, 102 A.D. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
The Doctor guessed the Daleks had a minimum of 12,000 ships, but this has not been confirmed.
Weaponry
Beam weapons commonly found on Dalek craft include deep penetration Ion Cannons, Anti-Matter Drills, Photon Impellers, massive Neutralisers, Disruptors, and Particle Beam weapons. The most common bomb was the Firebomb (aka Firestorm Fission or Atomic Bomb) with a blast equivalent to a volcanic erruption. These were deployed against large ground targets like cities. Small portable explosives had a blast equivalent to ten kilotons. Their warships were also equiped with neutron bombs to wipe out organics but leave infrastructure undamaged. Neutron Strikes were used to detonate stars. They also had Famine Bombs ( gas to destroy plant life). These warheads were launched from torpedo ports in Target Seeking Missiles or via automated SpaceMine-Layers. The standard space mine had infared trackerd with explosive radii of eight miles. The Daleks developed magntise beams (to trap escaping ships) and the Hallucitory Projector/Receiver, using ultrasonic hypno-sound to make targets see what they most feared or desired. [source needed]
Pre-Time War Dalek saucers could destroy entire planets with ease. Davros threatened to destroy Earth with his killcruiser, (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) while Terakis was successfully destroyed by a saucer attack. (EDA: War of the Daleks)
Behind the scenes
- Dalek flying saucers first appeared in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. DVD releases of the story featured a new and more convincing CGI special effects version of the saucer as an alternative to the original. On the same DVD they also appeared in the entire story's title sequence at the beginning of part one.
- Dalek saucers featured prominently in the action of The Dalek Chronicles comics and other print-based Dalek stories.
- The non-canonical theatrical film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (based on The Dalek Invasion of Earth) featured a Dalek command craft, the front section of which resembled a saucer. A drawing of this "saucer" appeared on the cover of the Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth novelisation even though the novelisation drew from the television version.