Ironside Project

The Ironside Project was a ruse created by the Daleks. It was designed to lure the Eleventh Doctor to them, trick him into delivering testimony to identify them as Daleks, and enable them to activate the Progenitor. The Project was a complete success, and the New Dalek Paradigm was the outcome.

Appearance
The Ironsides were a pair of standard Dalek drones. They had themselves painted khaki-green with the Union Flag in place of their recognition code as part of their plot. They sometimes had covers put over their blinkers to better hide themselves from opposing forces while undercover, and had army utility belts housing useful battlefield accoutrements strapped to their casings. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)

History
A single Dalek Saucer and its crew of three Daleks survived an encounter with the Doctor and fell through time to 1941. They acquired an original Progenitor device, which could create new Daleks, but the device did not respond to them because it did not recognise them as Daleks. The three decided to trick the Doctor into proving to the Progenitor that they were, indeed, Daleks.

They created Edwin Bracewell and provided him with charts and testing results realistic enough to take to the British Army. Two of the three Daleks posed as Ironside prototypes. Bracewell rolled out a war-designed variant of the Dalek and put them into key points within the Allied Forces. When not used in battle, they did small task such as providing tea to keep up their ruse. Winston Churchill informed the Eleventh Doctor of the Ironsides.

When the Doctor arrived a month later, he was furious to discover that the Ironsides were Daleks. When his attempts to convince Churchill of the truth failed, the Doctor confronted the Ironsides directly and declared that he was the Doctor and they, the Daleks, were his enemies. This was recorded by the Ironsides and sent to the Progenitor, which accepted the identification and the Daleks' command to create the new Daleks.

The Ironsides immediately dropped their ruse, revealed Bracewell as an android by blasting off his hand and returned to their ship in orbit. They were followed by the Doctor in the TARDIS. The Doctor confronted them and held the Daleks at bay with a "TARDIS destruct mechanism", actually a Jammy Dodger. The Daleks revealed their intentions and created five new Daleks. The new Supreme Dalek decided that the trio of older Daleks were "impure". The three Daleks accepted this and allowed themselves to be disintegrated by the new Progenitor Daleks, who went on to establish the New Dalek Paradigm. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)

Legacy
Encountering the "Bronze God", Churchill recognised it as a Dalek through his experience with the Ironsides. Indeed, he initially referred to the "Bronze God" itself as an Ironside. (AUDIO: Living History)

Behind the scenes

 * The name "Ironsides" was the name of the members of Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army in the English Civil War.
 * According to non-narrative The Dalek Handbook, the Ironsides were the Daleks who survived the War in the Medusa Cascade.
 * Green Daleks in the video game The Doctor and the Dalek bears resemblance to the Ironside Daleks.
 * Ironside Daleks are among Dalek enemies used in the Doctor Who: Legacy mobile game.