A composite material that is suitable for the protection of personnel and/or property from impact due to ballistic projectiles and method for making same are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, there is provided composite for resisting impact from an oncoming projectile having a front strike face and a back wear face comprising: an elastomer; and an impact resistive substrate wherein at least a portion of the impact resistive substrate is coated by the elastomer to provide the composite having a front strike face coating and a back wear face coating and wherein a ratio of weight of front strike face coating to back wear face coating ranges from 1:1.2 to 1:100.