The Shang family is useful as a single catalog entry because public reporting on individual hulls and designations is uneven. DoD and USCC testimony describe the Type 093B / Shang III as a guided-missile submarine development, while the CMSI technical study warns that visible hull dimensions do not prove a separate VLS. The Type 093A's raised casing is better treated as a towed-array handling feature unless a source specifically supports a missile-launch claim.
Type 093A evidence boundaryTreat the sail and aft-casing changes as hydrodynamic, sensor, and towed-array refinements. CMSI and Naval News both caution against reading the hump as VLS evidence.
Type 093B evidence boundaryDoD and USCC sources frame Shang III as an SSGN or guided-missile attack-submarine variant; CMSI accepts a likely pump-jet but questions whether public imagery shows enough added length for separate VLS cells.
YJ-18 statusCSIS describes a submarine-launched YJ-18B and lists Shang-class SSNs among reported YJ-18 platforms. This page records that fit in prose until a public YJ-18 support record exists.