Hmm, Archangelsk would still be pretty far from the front lines in that case. Potentially in range of air attack, if the weather be willing (I would defintely not want to be the poor guys assigned on that flight). May need constructions of entirely new air bases though. Maybe some token naval bombardments. It would make the Arctic convoy's pretty difficult, if not impossible.
Murmansk itself is a pretty tough nut to crack before we start talking about Archangelsk though. Leningrad is maybe doable if the German's manage to do it quickly before the siege. But Murmansk would be fighting in a frozen hell, for both sides.
Murmansk had two supply lines (rails of course). One from Leningrad, which would be cut off if the city were lost. The other leading from Archangel and points south to Moscow. The Germans/Finns OTOH would have impossible logistics. "Arctic swamp" may sound like an oxymoron, but that was what you faced up there. It was a short distance from Finland to Murmansk, but it might as well have been the Moon for what any potential invader faced.
A horrendous winter for most of the year, and when the snows receded, a sea of impassable mud as the permafrost melted. It was a region where you really didn't HAVE any practical "fair weather season" for campaigning. And tanks are out, except for the Soviets fighting hull down in defense.
IOW, Unspeakable Seamammal Eastern Front Variant.
OTOH, taking Leningrad simplifies LOCs and logistics for the Axis enormously. For all intents and purposes, Army Group North shuts down for the rest of the war, save as a defensive force, as there are few attainable strategic objectives anywhere nearby worth the effort.
More forces sent for Operation: Typhoon maybe, though they would make no difference whatsoever. Typhoon failed not due to lack of troops so much, as due to distances, LOCs, logistics, supplies, the weather, and above all, the differences in European versus Russian rail gauges. That reduced by 80% the advancement time of German railheads compared to elsewhere in the days of WWII blitzkrieg.
IDK though? Would having Army Group North HQed in (the remains of) Leningrad cause more of it to be cut off? Or would it allow the Germans to evacuate more easily? Nevermind. Hitler.
this is PRIOR to Pearl Harbor, was questioning whether the Japanese might think they could join in eliminating the Soviets from the war?
might think a rump state Russia would sell them oil and ship via the TSSR?
By the time of 7/22/1941, the Japanese Southern Strategy had already been decided upon AIUI. One city's loss, even a big one, on the other side of the world, wasn't going to reorientate the strategic focus of an island nation desperately looking for resources it needed for its war machine. Resources that were no where near eastern or even central Siberia.
In fact, a "Northern Strategy" was by this time most emphatically rejected by not just the IJN but the IJA as well. Except for a few hotheads sitting in Manchuria, no one had forgotten the pastings the IJA had taken attacking the USSR in the late 1930s. In many ways, of all the "first ranked" armies of WWII, there was none less capable of engaging the Soviet Army in open field warfare than the Imperial Japanese Army. The Soviets kept a strong force in the Far East throughout all of WWII, only denuding it temporarily down to a "mere" forty divisions during the Soviet counter-attacks at Moscow and Stalingrad.
Getting the information to Stalin telling him Japan was NOT going to attack the USSR cost Richard Sorge his life. But at least for once, Stalin believed one of his spies.
