There exist a wide range of applications for lightweight ballistic fabric shields, such as the protection of critical structural components in transport systems and the human body. However, some deficiencies are (1) the susceptibility to being abruptly severed by sharp objects, which completely eliminates the fabric's ability to stretch and absorb incoming kinetic energy and (2) environmental degradation of the fabric due to moisture, heat and sunlight, which is of growing concern, since many new fabrics have multiple purposes, such as electrical and chemical sensing, in addition to being part of a protective system. Because of these issues, the coating of fabric can be advantageous, however, it adds weight to the shielding system. Experiments on this type of coated fabric system are extremely time‐consuming. Accord‐ingly, this paper seeks to develop a computational framework using a coated network model in order to capture the basic characteristics of such systems. One aspect of the model's usefulness is that it can provide qualitative information to guide and reduce costly, time‐consuming experiments. Three‐dimensional numerical examples are given to illustrate the computational model. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)