The invention relates to the field of modeling and simulation, and provides an infrared imaging equipment reconnaissance effect simulation method suitable for combat simulation. The method includes such steps as simulating the target searching process, judging whether the observed field of view of infrared imaging device effectively covers the detected target, and detecting the detected target with the field of view of infrared imaging device; secondly, simulating the process of detecting and recognizing suspicious targets, aiming at judging the effect of target recognition based on the mathematic model constructed by the main technical performance of infrared imaging equipment, battlefield environment conditions and target characteristic information; finally, the simulation of target location process being carried out to generate the target location information with reconnaissance error. The invention divides the whole reconnaissance process into several stages such as searching, detecting, identifying, confirming and positioning. The model calculation of each stage mainly depends on the equipment tactical performance index, which can not only better reflect the inherent attributeof the equipment, but also is not complicated. Compared with the test data, the simulation error of the method is small, and the method has a good application prospect in the combat simulation.