Yup. This actually happened.

[Shai]

I think you made the right choice sending them out.

As I said I've sent out 4 missions that I (now) expect to fail.
You typically get about 50% of the XP for failure which is [typically!] enough to level up and get closer to the required stats.

The only better option would be to send them out on another mission they would succeed that gives more than 50% of the one you are about to fail. Sometimes the stat requirements do not allow for this - or the members of the team that need levels don't fit the mission I can succeed so I send them out anyway and hope for the best. They come back ready to face the mission with higher stats and a few more training sessions.

What I do not think is that there's a gradient scale. I think if he says you're equal to the task, you have some hidden flat %. Right now I'm literally 2 points too low for the Lv40 mission and on any other mission in the game that would be "equal to the task" but for that mission he flat up tells me "They aren't ready for this." I assume that's a 0% success rate. I'm making an assumption, but I think I'd rather just get 2 more points of Physical and do it at 100%.