This article presents the modeling and simulation of a simple two-terminal and a multi-terminal voltage source converter based medium-voltage DC system, representing a simplified shipboard distribution network, for angular stability analysis. The control modes considered for the voltage source converter include the voltage control mode and the active and reactive power control schemes. The impact of these control modes on maintaining the DC voltage and, subsequently, on the transient as well as small-signal stability of the medium-voltage DC systems has been examined with the help of simulation in MATLAB/Simulink® (The MathWorks, Natick, Massachusetts, USA), and the results have been compared with an alternative medium-voltage AC distribution scheme. The impact of adding a power system stabilizer to enhance the small-signal stability has also been examined in the case of the medium-voltage AC architecture. Results indicate that that generators with the type 0 exciter are unstable with the medium-voltage AC architecture and stable with the medium-voltage DC architecture; using a type 1 exciter in the medium-voltage DC system improved the damping of the system. Use of a power system stabilizer for a medium-voltage AC system improved the damping, but the improvement was more significant with the placement of an static var compensator, in agreement with the results of participation analysis.