I cant see why they needed to land and to take the bugs on in combat when they could of just nuked the planet or at the very least dropped bombs from the ships.
Maybe this was explained but i cant remember a logical reason for it.
In the book some bug planets wee nuked. But others were attacked in a different manner to retrieve human prisoners of war and to capture bugs for study.
shareNot useful if you want to colonize the planet. That said the space marines were fighting in a very primitive way given all the technology available.
shareThey were looking for captured humans and hoped to capture some of the brain caste of bugs. The book explained it better.
sharethe bugs were living underground and probable immune to radioactivety. so no point of nuking the place
shareThe critters would just scurry away into their caves, then it would be even harder to find the head honchos underground
shareJust gas the joint.
At the very least fight the creatures from the air. A10 warthogs would’ve held up much better than infantry who needed 1000 bullets to kill one bug.