According to exemplary inventive practice, ceramic powder or slurry is selectively deposited at many discrete locations on each of many fiberglass fabric substrates. The sizes and/or shapes of the ceramic deposits vary among the substrates. The substrates are selectively ordered and stacked so that perpendicular through-plane alignments of respective ceramic deposits form selected three-dimensional geometric shapes. The resultant stack of substrates, characterized by many three-dimensional ceramic inclusions, is impregnated with an elastomer or an epoxy that binds the ceramic-deposited substrates together, resulting in a finished composite product. Inventive composite structures can be multifariously designed and embodied to afford selected ballistic and/or structural and/or electromagnetic qualities. Another mode of inventive practice provides for incorporation of the above-described inventive composite product as a layer in a multilayer composite system that also includes a high strain-rate-sensitivity-hardening polymer layer, a hybrid composite fabric layer, a ceramic layer, and a polymeric ballistic fabric layer.