Two representative soil models are compared and contrasted within two transient nonlinear dynamics computational analyses. The first soil model is representative of a discrete-particle group of models, while the other is a typical continuum-type consolidated-soil model. The two computational analyses involved: (a) the case of a soil slug impacting a rigid flat surface and (b) the case of detonation of a mine shallow buried in soil and the interaction of the resulting gaseous detonation products, mine fragments, and soil ejecta with a plate-like deformable steel target. The results obtained show that the use of the computationally more expensive particle mechanics-based soil models is fully justified only in the case of loose (low-density) soil. In addition, the magnitude of the particle-to-particle coefficient of restitution has been found to have a second-order effect on the extent of momentum transferred from the moving soil to the target and that it may be substantially different from its effective counterpart for the entire loose-soil agglomerate.