The impact behaviour of a reinforced structure, similar to the ones found in ships, was studied both experimentally and numerically. The model was experimental and numerically tested while the prototype was investigated numerically only. The scaled impact mass was calculated according to a special formulation which takes into account the distortion of scaling laws due to the material strain-rate sensitivity. Experimental results were used to corroborate the theoretical model, also probed by a numerical simulation of the impact event.