With the deep integration of informatization, intelligence, and unmanned technology, combat effectiveness assessment has gradually shifted from the static analysis of single equipment to the dynamic modeling of multi-domain collaborative system. In this paper, we systematically sort out the research progress in the field of combat effectiveness assessment in the past five years, define the conceptual connotation of combat effectiveness assessment, visualize and analyze the core literature based on CiteSpace, summarize the iterative paradigm of the process of combat effectiveness assessment, and further put forward the three-generation technological spectrum of the assessment methodology, and review the literature around the assessment methods of traditional static analysis, virtual-reality fusion simulation, and intelligent dynamic modeling. The study shows that future research needs to further address the challenges of data heterogeneity, timeliness of virtual-real interaction and model reliability, and promote the development of combat effectiveness assessment in the direction of intelligence, dynamization and systematization.