The twin aims of the paper are to investigate the collapse strength characteristics of ship plating subject to impact pressure loads and to develop a simple structural design formula considering impact load effects. The general purpose nonlinear finite element program STARDYNE together with existing experimental results is used to investigate the collapse behavior of plating under impact pressure loads. The rigid plastic theory taking into account large deflection effects is applied to the development of the design formulation. In the theoretical method, the collapse strength formulation for plating subject to hydrostatic pressure is first derived using the rigid plastic theory. By including the strain rate erects in the formulation it can be applied to impact pressure problems. As illustrative examples, the collapse behavior of steel unstiffened plates and aluminum alloy stiffened panels subject to impact pressure loads is analyzed.