Beyond 1000m it certainly does. Source: watching my rounds lobbed downrange and jokes about eating sandwiches while waiting for them to land.
Taking a long time to land =/= top down attack. But I'd love to see some footage of you lobbing rounds down range and showing your barrel elevation...
I believe you are mistaken, confusing the deployment of the extended range TOW-2B variant, fielded as TOW-2B Aero, mainly for use by Super Cobras. TOW-2B production superseded TOW-2A production in 1992. Source: recollection of the TOW racks in my Bradley in Bosnia in 1996. Oh, and Redstone Arsenal's open-source history of the program.
https://history.redstone.army.mil/miss-tow.html
Yeah, you're right, the TOW-2B went into production in 1991 (also, your link doesn't work). But only 40k (not warhammer) produced compared to 118.000 of the BGM-71E, and I have no idea how many of those 40k missiles were produced by 1997, but the next production order didn't come until 2004.
I notice you don't address other factors about setting the BMP's front armor to match the 23mm ammunition it's supposed to defeat. It also defeats up to 73mm HE! (5 Dam vs modified Armor of (5+2) 7 = no penetration chance.) Even 105mm HE needs an extra success to penetrate a BMP with the current armor values.
There is some wonkiness with weapon damage vs. vehicle armor in this version of the game. Without redesigning the entire framework, I'm not sure how you fix it. Before changing any of the damage or armor numbers, I'd recommend experimenting with ad hoc vehicular armor modifiers for small arms. Even a +1 for a .50 cal would prevent it from ever penetrating Armor 5 on a vehicle. By comparison, making a BMP's front armor 6 proofs it against 76mm HE and requires multiple successes to damage from weapons up to 115mm HE.
I'm not actually sure what would happen if a BMP was hit front-on by a 76mm HE shell, or even a 115mm HE shell... HE shells are not exactly well known for their armour penetration qualities. Sure, the shell would detonate, but considering the wedge shaped front, I'm not sure the explosion would penetrate the hull. I don't know of any instances where a BMP has been impacted by an HE shell from the front.
That said, I don't think the game is well suited to simulate HE effects against armored vehicles. I mean, the current war has certainly shown what HE shells can do to a modern MBT in a top down attack...
Actually, I'm not sure why you're arguing about High Explosive shells against armour in the first place. Why would anyone be firing HE shells out of a 76mm gun against an armored vehicle? It feels more like you're just bringing those up to make some sort of argument.
Here's a list of cannon shells that can penetrate the BMP-1 from the front with the new armor values (I've marked the ones that aren't guaranteed to pen with red):
EDIT: Note that anything requiring more than 2 successes is automatically defeated by the front hull armour
20mm AP (requires 3 successes)
23mm AP (requires 3 successes)
25mm AP (requires 3 successes)
30mm AP (requires 2 successes)
30mm HE (requires 4 successes)
40mm AP (requires 1 success)
40mm HE (requires 4 successes)
73mm AP (requires 1 success)
73mm HE (requires 4 successes)
76.2mm AP (requires hit, automatic penetration)
76.2mm HE (requires 2 successes)
203mm HE (requires hit, automatic penetration)
155mm HE (requires hit, automatic penetration)
152mm HE (requires hit, automatic penetration)
125mm HEAT (requires hit, automatic penetration)
125mm HE (requires hit, automatic penetration)
125mm APFSDS (requires hit, automatic penetration)
122mm HE (requires hit, automatic penetration)
120mm HEAT (requires hit, automatic penetration)
120mm APFSDS (requires hit, automatic penetration)
115mm HEAT (requires hit, automatic penetration)
115mm HE (requires 1 success)
115mm APFSDS (requires hit, automatic penetration)
105mm HEAT (requires hit, automatic penetration)
105mm HE Howitzer (requires 1 success)
105mm HE (requires 2 successes)
105mm APDS (requires hit, automatic penetration)
100mm HE (requires 2 successes)
100mm HEAT (requires hit, automatic penetration)
100mm APDS (requires 1 success)
Now, which ones of those seem wrong? Should a BMP be auto-destroyed by a 73mm HE shell to the front? Should it be impossible for a 73mm AP shell to bounce? Should all HE shells from anything bigger than 70mm automatically penetrate the front of a BMP? Keep in mind that this is direct hits from the front, not top-down shots or shots to the side or anything like that.
Also, note that I didn't include mortars in this since they'll automatically hit from the top and thus use the hull rear armor value. Same with Howitzers in most cases, but I included them in the rare case of direct fire.
As for other weapons, I figured I'd make a list for those as well:
Russian 12.7 (requires 3 successes)
Russian 14.5 (requires 3 successes)
Nato 12.7 (requires 3 successes)
M72 LAW (requires hit, automatic penetration)
M47 Dragon (requires hit, automatic penetration)
AT-4 (requires hit, automatic penetration)
TOW (requires hit, automatic penetration)
Konkurs (requires hit, automatic penetration)
RPG-16 (requires 1 success)
RPG-7 (requires hit, automatic penetration)
Grg m/48 (requires hit, automatic penetration)
So, the main change I can see from giving the BMP 1 point more in frontal armor is that it's almost immune to heavy machineguns and smaller autocannons... which it's supposed to be.
And that some lower-caliber HE shells might require more than one success to do damage.