A critical assessment is provided of the typical laminate-level, classical meso-scale, and fracture-mechanics-enriched meso-scale material models for continuous-fiber reinforced polymer-matrix composites. Suitability of these material models for the use in structural-mechanics and ballistic-resistance computational analyses of the composite laminates is investigated by carrying out a series of computational studies in which a composite laminate is either subjected to in-plane tension/compression or bending or used as a target plate and impacted by a solid right circular cylindrical projectile. The results obtained suggest that the fracture-mechanics enriched meso-scale composite-laminate material model, in which the fracture-mechanics character of micro-cracking is included within a damage-mechanics formulation, is currently the best compromise between computational efficiency and physical-reality/fidelity.