[narwan]

It's either you directing all the units or leaving it up to the AI. There's little in between.
Of course you've seen real-time simulations where individual units do most of the menial tasks themselves, it's endemic to real-time for exactly the reasons I outlined. In real-time there is no time to let one single brain (the player) do all the necessary (and realistic) thinking that needs to done (and which in reality would be done by all the individuals involved separately and simultaneously). So in real-time simulations the AI has to kick in and take over a large part of that. With all the (unrealistic) consequences that brings along.
Steel Panthers has gone the other way. It gives a player maximum control by reducing the AI involvement to a minimum. It mimics realism by giving each unit sufficient 'brain'time.

But you shouldn't forget that these simulations are all exactly that: simulations. They model only part of reality and can only model part of it. Simulations always have abstractions that violate reality. Can't be helped. Both the realtime simulations and turn based simulations have their share of unavoidable unrealistic elements. And it's almost impossible to combine the two.

Narwan