Bird strike on aircraft remains a serious threat to flight safety. Experimental investigations employing real birds are associated with high cost and low reproducibility. Therefore, physical substitute materials are often used instead of real birds. This study investigates the soft impact loading on aluminium and laminated glass targets from ballistic gelatine and rubber projectiles. The two targets simulate strike on the aircrafts' fuselage and windshield respectively. The full field out of plane displacements of the targets were recorded for velocities 110 to 170 m s−1 using digital image correlation during gas gun experiments. A simulation model based on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics was developed and validated against the experimental data from all four projectile-target material combinations. It was shown that for the same momentum, a rubber projectile exerts a higher pressure on a target as compared to gelatine, even though the out of plane displacements and in-plane strains are similar. This led to fractures in the impacted laminated glass when rubber was used. The study offers new experimental data as well as efficient design modelling tools to mitigate damage imposed during bird strike. The models provide a way towards enabling the optimisation of real, large scale aircraft structures and components.