<p>The ceramic–steel double-layered target subjected to high velocity impact which includes complex multiphase and multiphysics phenomena is a challenging problem to address. In this paper, the meshless smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method is employed to simulate a variety of numerical cases pertinent to the high velocity impact of ceramic–metal composite structures. Firstly, the simulation of the high velocity impact of an aluminum spherical projectile on aluminum and copper plates was conducted to validate the correctness of the SPH computational model. After the verification of the developed in-house SPH solver, the numerical model was subsequently applied to investigate the dynamic behavior and mechanism of a double-layer ceramic–metal target plate subjected to high velocity impact. Moreover, the damage patterns and damage area of this double-layered plate were studied under the variation of the physical parameters. The numerical results obtained from the GPU-accelerated SPH solver are in good agreement with previous experimental data, indicating that the in-house SPH solver can predict the physical process of the damage patterns of the ceramic–steel double-layer targets under high velocity impact well; the ceramic specimen improves the momentum absorption and the impact resistance of the double-layered target plate effectively.</p>