Interesting, I don't recall any of this and I have been around since the beginning of CoH2. What I do remember was the infantry weapons did not have profiles so distance didn't mean much. It was a messy and a disappointing launch.
Well it was in the closed\open beta for sure. I'il be honest I cant remember for sure it was like this on release aswell, but considering ToW missions were pretty much indentical to the MP build and airfield mission was a part of Victory at Stalingrad ToW which was released in a few month after the release. But Relic already might have created separate MP profiles at this point.
But considering on release SP and MP stats were identical I still think this sustem made itself past release, maybe for a shot time tho, since I dougbt relic would have used different unit profiles for ToW.
Anyway, you can clearly see it on this video:
Look how much damage T34\76 deals to stug E
https://youtu.be/jAGINa2c-Cw?t=409
And here how much more damage vetted T34 deals. I mean stug is not full HP, but its pretty clear that damage is much highter compared to the one in the first clip
https://youtu.be/jAGINa2c-Cw?t=569
And to be sure that it wasnt some sort of an rear armor damage modifier or something
https://youtu.be/jAGINa2c-Cw?t=1534
And Its pretty much like this for all ToW and Campaign missions.