So after. oh my god, 131 hours already... I have noticed that you can no longer target an enemy weapon in VATS, nor shoot it out of their hand anymore. Can someone give a reason for this peculiar change in combat? Even if I had to do it manually, it would be cool if I can disable those raiders with a fat man at long distance.

How does one disarm an opponents gun without completely blowing them to chunks with a Mini nuke?

Disarming opponents are directly tied to weapon related perks now,

I meant shoot the fat man the raiders carrying out of their hands.

Just shoot the arm holding the weapon.

As was mentioned, shoot the arm holding the weapon.

Weapon targeting was removed (I assume) with gear durability. There is no point having a separate target point for weapon (from the arm) if shooting the weapon has no effect (that is destroying it).

Bit of a necro, but after trying multiple times, I have yet to cause an enemy to drop their weapon, even if VATS says the arm holding it is crippled.

I think the last perk of Gunsliger,Rifleman and Commando have a small chance to disarm enemies but you still can't target the weapon itself. I miss it a lot in Fallout 4 now that every enemy throw a grenade or molotov cocktail. It was fun blowing up enemies when they still had a grenade in their hand in Fallout 3.

I noticed during the perception special opening video it clearly shows you being able to target the weapon itself in vats.

So you can't do it on your own like in previous titles, you have to have a perk to disarm enemies. Lame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40D7u1BcmrE

I've found shouting the arm holding it can set off a grenade. Much like shooting the arm of SM suicider.

you can target granades in VATS in mid air.

shooting of arms works for disarming too. but most enemies are dead by the time they loose an arm anyway.

the disarming-ability is only available with the last pistols perk, and is pretty handy.