This is the argument that submarines don't really "swim" as commonly understood, isn't it?

I think so, but the badness of that argument is context-dependent. How about the hypothetical context where 70k+ startups are promising investors that they'll win the 50 meter freestyle in 2028 by entering a fine-tuned USS Los Angeles?

And planes doesn't fly like a bird, it has very different properties and many things birds can do can't be done by a plane. What they do is totally different.