Mechanisms of deformation and fracture of a coated material are investigated at different strain rates. Dynamic boundary-value problem in the plane-strain formulation is solved numerically by the finite-difference method. Microstructure of the composite is taken into account explicitly in calculations. Macroscopic strength of the composite is found out to increase exponentially with the strain rate of compression, and changes but only slightly at tension. It is shown that the higher the strain rate the less intensive the cracking of the coating at compression, and the more intensive the cracking of the coating at tension.