What was so devastating about the Clone Wars? (Spoilers)

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Going by ROTS and what little I've seen of The Clone Wars and read, the GAR, specifically the Clone Troopers are largely shock troops. They fight the most important battles with the most expensive and powerful toys while local militias bare the brunt of defending their own worlds.

The outer rim sieges are described in the ROTS ICS as a very large scale event involving huge numbers of ships. It also hints at the CIS' overall strategy, basically trying to turn as many planets as they possibly can into Geonosis style factory worlds crawling with droids and other war machines using self perpetuating factories. If they do this on inhabited planets they can effectively hold the civilian populace hostage, using them as living shields against base delta zero bombardment. This forces the Republic to blockade every fortress world they find in order to deny the Seperatists the mammoth armies being spawned by the factories until the Republic can amass the troops and war machines necessary to conquer the fortress worlds.

The siege tactic would weaken the Seperatists' ability to deploy massive numbers of droids down to more manageable levels for the Republic and the Clone Troopers. The droids the Seperatists can move would, like the Clone Troopers, have to be used sparingly. Basically we don't see or hear of huge battles involving millions of Clones and billions of droids because both the CIS and Republic are spread so thinly trying to bottle each other's key worlds and forces up and strangle them through blockades, it doesn't leave much left for battles of epic proportions. This would also go a long way towards the CIS under Grievous adopting more brutal shock tactics to try and break the Republic's will to fight as well as start being able to mass larger and more powerful fleets rather than loosing them sieging and trying to break sieges.

[Tychu]

Lets see what happend in the Clone Wars

Jedi are murderd
Battle Of Kamino
Battle of Jabim (civillian soldiers on both sides)
Battle of Biz Pitty
Skirmish at Honoghri
Battle of Geonosis (many Geonosians die)
Battle of Courscant
Battle of Kashykk (EpIII explains that the massive force of wookies are killed, Trooper :"The wookies are dead"
Renilli Space Fleet crisis
Bounty Hunter Guild Skirmish
Battle at Harun Kal (native soldiers, many die on both sides)

please add to the list if you see any other large battles missing

This war was devastating on both fronts, many planets like Jabiim were destroyed and forever changed

[Noble Ire]

Addendum:

The Battle of Muunilist
BDZing of Dronogar (no native population, but still devstating)
The Obliteration of Quarren Colony World Pammant

[Macross]

Lets not forget that Lucas is doing a TV series based on the Clone Wars.

[andrewgpaul]

Battle of Kashykk (EpIII explains that the massive force of wookies are killed, Trooper :"The wookies are dead"

I figured that just meant those particular Wookiees in that crashed flyer.

[MKSheppard]

The CIS Base Delta Zeroed Humbarine, a city world similar to Coruscant. That's trillions, if not quadrillions of casualties right there, and it is eluded that this has happened elsewhere as well.

If that's not devastaion, I don't know what is.

That's nice; except most of the audience for Star Wars movies have never
heard of, nor will read the EU; an intelligent depiction of the Clone Wars
shouldn't have to be ramrodded in by the EU writers after the fact to fix
Lucas' mistakes.

[Noble Ire]

Shep, why are you so obsessed with what other, less informed people will think? Heck, in RotS, do they even say the war has been "devestating?"

[MKSheppard]

Shep, why are you so obsessed with what other, less informed people will think?

Because ever since I heard Obi-Wan talk of the "Clone Wars" with a haunted
look in ANH, I've been wanting to see what was so devastating about the war;
and when Lucas finally gets around to showing it, it's not so devastating.

[Noble Ire]

Shep, why are you so obsessed with what other, less informed people will think?

Because ever since I heard Obi-Wan talk of the "Clone Wars" with a haunted
look in ANH, I've been wanting to see what was so devastating about the war;
and when Lucas finally gets around to showing it, it's not so devastating.

Look, there was no real way Lucas could fit all of the war into half a movies and a cartoon micro-series (yes, more could have been done in CW, but we do have another one coming up that might make up for it.) You know that plenty of bad crap happened during the war, even if it isnt expressly shown onscreen. I still dont see the what the big deal is.

[Firefox]

Because ever since I heard Obi-Wan talk of the "Clone Wars" with a haunted
look in ANH, I've been wanting to see what was so devastating about the war;
and when Lucas finally gets around to showing it, it's not so devastating.

Perhaps the haunted look he expresses is from remembering his experiences with Anakin during the Clone Wars?

[MKSheppard]

Look, there was no real way Lucas could fit all of the war into half a movies and a cartoon micro-series

Yes there was; He showed bunches of Jedi getting offed during the Order
66 sequence, which was at best a few minutes long; how hard would it have
been to produce a few sequences a few minutes long showing other parts
of the war, instead of leaving it to our imaginations?

According to Curtis Saxton, there are impact craters all over Coruscant
from crashed ships; why didn't Lucas show us a separatist ship burning
heavily, losing altitude, and crashing on the dark side of Coruscant?

Cut away to the Jedi temple, where there is a bright flash on the horizon,
followed by a low rumbling...that sequence would only have taken a
minute, and would have impressed that the battle over Coruscant was
a bit more deadly than just filling space with wreckage and ruining a
landing strip....

[Noble Ire]

Actually Shep, in that case your right. That would have been reasonable and workable into the story (and in the novelization, a similar scene is depicted.)