An improved multi-objective discrete wolf swarm algorithm (MODWPA-SS) is proposed to solve the target assignment problem in multi-aircraft cooperative air combat. Firstly, a multi-objective optimization model of target assignment is established. Secondly, the harmonic distance is used to calculate the crowding degree of Pareto optimal solution to select the first wolf group, and the concept of wolf swarm is introduced to improve the calling and encirclement behavior to improve the diversity and searching ability of the target allocation scheme set. The adaptive step size is designed to perform wolf swarm search, which improves the ability of local searching and jumping out of part, and improves the problem of many parameter settings. At last, the updating mechanism of wolf swarm algorithm is improved to remove the bad solution. The simulation results show that MODWPA-SS has 42.6% less running time, 36.2% less solution interval and better quality of single-objective optimal solution than MODWPA (Multi-Objective Discrete Wolf Colony Algorithm), which proves the effectiveness and better comprehensive performance of MODWPA-SS in target assign-ment multi-objective optimization.