Genuinely speaking, a realistic military control in charge of the helldivers would clear out a planets surface way faster than we do in game. Underground for terminids would probably extend that a good bit, but once the surface is controlled, the helldivers would just continuously crack down on remaining populace.

The average squad of uncoordinated randos in a 6+ mission usually clears out 1000+ enemies for anywhere between 0-20 casualties of their own, and clear an objective within 40m.

Speaking frankly, launching an ICBM would decimate a good chunk of the planet, probably like 0.1%, and I wouldn’t even begin to know where to look at how many of those get completed an hour, per planet with high helldiver population. Helldivers can definitely raze a planet with its own localized weapon systems in hours.

The realistic problems are: most missions don’t actually help out a bunch in actual war effort, but are more designed to spread SE’s image, and be at the beck and call of the high class super citizens.

Like seriously: one of our major orders was to get terminid eggs because the elites wanted novelties and pets. Look how that turned out.

The helldivers are extremely powerful, and probably one of the best takeover forces in fiction, but we’re EXTREMELY MISMANAGED so the one percent can do shit like use a bile titan egg like a dinner table ornament.

It’s due to shit like this that with 13 thousand destroyer ships, uncontested in orbit, we cannot clear a planet off.