De Laval Nozzles and other improvements to pre-modern rocket artillery

One of the fundamental differences between modern rockets and those used in the nineteenth century and earlier is the presence of converging-diverging nozzles, which massively improve exhaust velocity and thus performance. Could the principles be discovered and implemented much sooner, and if so, what impact could they have on rocket artillery? Could rockets become a much more important weapon of war sooner? Could they become more common on battlefields and aboard warships?

What other improvements could conceivably be made to drastically improve the state-of-the-art before 1900?
 
Any limitations on the material that would be used for the nozzle or something similar?
No. You'd probably use clay, just as Congreve rockets did, just shaped more efficiently.

It IS a good question, and one to which I don't know the answer.

However, with gunpowder (literal gunpowder) you don't have that much control over burning, and you probably have particulates (unburnt charcoal, for instance) spitting out the end. I don't know how much that would impact performance.

Note that Wiki claims that the first user of a de Laval nozzle for rockets was Goddard - who was using liquid fuels of MUCH higher ISP than gunpowder. It would be interesting to compare just how much difference purely the nozzle makes.
 
From my understanding, the particulates that are unburnt would have an undesirable effect on performance and powder has been problematic in regard to testing of new designs. According to one source, "powdered rockets were inefficient; only 2 percent of the available energy was being converted into motion." ( http://www.space.com/19944-robert-goddard.html ) Goddard's rockets did have an increase efficiency by roughly 63 percent with the implementation of de Laval nozzles.

In my opinion, with the inefficiency of powder and the improvements that were being made in artillery, the usage of rockets with de Laval nozzles would still be limited unless there was an alternate fuel source found.
 
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