Sounds like you'd prefer real time tactical games. Much less building/resource management.
not sure that there is a modern day version of Cannon Fodder though.
You might like the Total War series (if you don't mind yer war/battles being fought in a Civilizationesque backdrop of towns/cities/etc building improvements, and tech trees).
You might like the Close Combat series (top down, fairly realistic small unit tactics game, with realistic moral and arms set in world war two, so if one of your infantry platoon has been shot to pieces they panic and generally don't do what you order them to do). It's fairly old (although the team behind it now makes small unit tactical games for the US military now), so it might be hard to find. If you do manage to track down the Russian Front one (CC3) get the real red mod, as it makes the unit rosters accurate enough to placate World War 2 military history nerds).
actually Full Spectrum Warrior sounds a bit like Cannon Fodder, you issue orders to soldiers in a small unit etc.. it's free now (albeit with adverts, and supplied by the US military).
