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Other than not running the risk of burning through a lot of combat rounds (and keeping the bloodshed to a minimum), what is the advantage of attacking with units set on minimize losses? [&:] This is an Eastern Front scenario (Kharkov '43). I think Bob Cross recommends that the Germans do just that on their first turn with his 41-45 scenario.

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer , but with a new (to me) scenario I usually first let the AI play itself, to get a feel for the flow of the scenario (e.g. I cheat). [:-] (Since it's not PBEM, there is no one to complain).[:'(]

ORIGINAL: PRUSSIAN TOM

Other than not running the risk of burning through a lot of combat rounds (and keeping the bloodshed to a minimum), what is the advantage of attacking with units set on minimize losses? This is an Eastern Front scenario (Kharkov '43). I think Bob Cross recommends that the Germans do just that on their first turn with his 41-45 scenario.

I seldom use minimise losses. Besides the situation you talk about above, I would potentially use it if I ran up against an enemy unit in a hex which was "observed" not "spotted", giving me no information about unit's condition. A minimise losses attack would then give a good idea of how potent the defender was, potentially dislodging them if weak, without producing excessive losses if the position was too strong.

I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer , but with a new (to me) scenario I usually first let the AI play itself, to get a feel for the flow of the scenario (e.g. I cheat). (Since it's not PBEM, there is no one to complain).

That's not cheating anyway. It's not like an exam- you're allowed to look at the paper before you answer the questions.

I use Minimize Losses quite a bit against units with significantly worse proficiencies than mine. It reduces the chances of using all your combat rounds.

In 3.4, minimize losses is a must for heavily entrenched (fortified) units. Every attack on a fortified unit gives a chance to:
1. Dig it out of its entrenchments, although that is much more likely with naval/air/artillery assets in support.
2. A chance (albeit small) to cause it to retreat assuming it passes the baseline retreat check.
3. Weaken the unit without taking massive losses, which is necessary if you fail in the above two and still need that hex. Sufficiently weakened you can launch a heavy assault on a fortified hex without taking stupid losses. They'll still be heavy.
4. As governato pointed out, you generally don't want to burn 3-4 combat rounds on on attack. Atually you never want to burn that many rounds on one attack, but sometimes its necessary and you plan for it. Unexpected turn burn sucks.

When I playtested my "Barbarosa 41" scenario I used min. losses attacks exclusively. I did that because min.losses seems to work
just fine to root out the nasty Soviets, even in stacks, and seems to leave my attacking units w/ more supply than the other settings.
So repeat attacks are not prohibitive and are even encouraged. I was working under low supply levels and min. losses attacks seemed
to be indicated in this instance.

Thank you (all) for the feedback [&o][&o][&o] . As a junior alpha-beta-beta tester, my CO has shown amazing patience with my ineptitude against Elmer , much less a live PBEM opponent . Good thing I'm on the "virtual" Russian front right now, or I might be in a gulag.