I take it OP is asking about "Special Forces" or does he want " Black Operatives"?

Black Operatives will kill any special forces team in an engagement. Simply due not to physical training but technology.

I am an American , and i only know of American Operatives i dont know how other countries work.

However , you have 3 Echelons of Black Operatives in the United States. The Top TEIR of Operatives actually see very little actually combat. The bottom 2 Tiers see the most.

The 3rd Echelon is SOG Groups in the CIA , Special Operation Groups

The 2nd Echelon is a Task Force of SOG and Special Forces.

The 1st Ehcelon (The names of the Echelons are classified) the 1st is the real deal. Each Operative in this program will cost 30 million dollars to train. With 1.8 to 2.6 billion to Arm. This is where Sci Fi becomes Science Fact.

They are simply known as one man armies. They operate alone but with the full support of certain agencies , they are never truly alone. They are supported by very special UAVs.

If you get to the 1st Echelon , you will never be a true civilian again. You actually never become a True Civilian again in any of the Prioritiesed Echelons but the 1st Echelon you are appointed a place to live given a cell phone and a vehicle to travel in and must report in twice a day and much more im sure. You have Agencies that are branched agencies of your major agencies , and then you have Echelons within these branch agencies , unless your a general agent and you will hear very little of these Echelons (Officially)

You may choose to believe me or not but the following is insider info.
There are 2/3 groups of Special Forces in the USA:
-The so called Tier Two and/or Three which is pretty much SFOD-D, DEVGRU, Rangers etc. You can compare them to SAS, SBS, KCT, Spetsnaz and other similarly structured SF if you like.
-Then there is Tier One.... These are the bearded dudes in Afghanistan you sometimes see on TV or Youtube and they are extremely badass.
They "cleanse" enemy compounds with "only" 2-3 of them and get the job done perfectly.
They are all SF Operators from different groups (CIA, Army, Marines, etc.) who have proven themselves over and over again in combat and were hand picked from those groups because of their excellent skills, even by SF standard.

You know how SF units are supposed to be the best of the best of all infantrymen? Well, these Tier One people are the best of the best of their respective SF units.
When they are hand picked, they get an individual call-sign and don't belong to their former units anymore. Some of these guys practically live in Afghanistan now, that's how much they love their job. They don't do it for the money or "honor". They do it because they are so good at it, it makes regular SF Operators cry.
They fall directly under the control of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff and the President of the USA.

So to answer your question of which "Known" SF is the best, I don't really know. Nobody really knows. Too many unknown variables. My best guess of best "overall" SF unit would be either US SFOD-D, Aussie/British SAS/SBS or Norwegian FSK.
If individual Tier One Operators count then there's no doubt in my mind they take the prize of "Best SF"

edit:
@milkyway12:
Damn it You beat me to it! Good job buddy.

IT--

If these guys are "nuclear dudes" your friend is talking about NEST teams

I say it G.I. Joe is the best team out there.
kidding aside....the most elite special forces are those we -majority- would never know.

People should know that a unit is only as good as the people who serve in the unite.

SAS, US seal, US delta, DINOPS, 2rep CRAP,FSB, FSK, MJK and so on are not always the best. The Quality of a unite changes as new people enter the units.

Even the quality bar changes to be able to have a SF unite with certain amount of people.

Originally posted by Royal76
The United States Navy S.E.A.L.s versus the Delta Force (Aka the Unit)

The rest are just fodder for them

Spoken like a good American patriot who thinks for some reason that I have never fathomed that being American somehow makes you superior to the rest of the world.

SAS > all

It's a tough question because the different branches have different "specialties".

SEALs and Delta focus on direct assault to include raiding building, assassinations, captures and demolitions, ect. SEALs having the added dimension of seaborne expertise and delta having roots in the green berets giving them guerilla warfare expertise.

Green Berets themselves are quite interesting as well, specialising in guerilla warfare. Language, negotiation, ccombat training and leadership are the primary tools of the green hats who often find themselves training and leading armies of foreign resistance fighters.

Special Air Service train to strictly fire from the hip in CQB. (this allows for a quicker reaction to the threat).

Most other SF Units, employ the 'ironsight pink panther' method.

As far as I am aware, they are the only major SF unit to adopt this method.

They also invented the 'Killing House' and the flashbang grenade.

They have long practiced hostage resuce in the Killing Houses with their own troops present as the hostages, always using live rounds.

In one such example, an SAS Trooper positioned himself in a chair, with two 'head sized' targets above each of his shoulders and his mates stormed the room, putting perfect 'double taps' on these targets from the hip.

When not on operation, an SAS soldier is at the firing range, honing his skill, every single day.

That is the kind of practice that sets the SAS apart from other SF Units. Fearless, precise and very very fast.

Very old thread before my time but I will bite. I think invisa tech is real but I think some of the higher forces can tell you what a REAL Mars fly by looks like

Delta, SEAL, SAS, Spetznas, are all extremely well trained SF. These guys train, life, fight, and die together. The cohesion is far beyond what most soldiers understand. They are this good simply because they have to be. They are sent to the forefront to fight the "unseen" battles. There are a few groups -that shall remain nameless- that consist of men from all of these groups combined. They, if caught, make no affiliation to any country. Normally various intelligence agencies use these groups. This goes far beyond Blackwater. Since BW, still has some rules to follow.

I think it is demagogic to choose one or a group of units with shiny outfits and state of the art weapons... Because, an operative is equally good in the USA, in Israel, in Africa or in Portugal; the diference is that a Portuguese special forces soldier, for instance, will never have at his disposal the gear or the resources that a special forces american soldier will have. BUT, does this make the american better? This is only an example, not an attempt to praise the Portuguese, or one or another, but in this case, the Portuguese showed what their capable off in all the editions of the Combat Team Conference, where a Portuguese Unit (Delta-Force counterpart) of the National Police, called Special Operations Group, earned all over the years excellent positions in the ranking of this special forces olympics, so to speak.

Of course there others units in Portugal, and around the world, with excellent operators and magnificent human skills.

forgot to say that, delta force, seals, gsg9, and so on, participated in this events

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
Um... I'm not sure where you got the idea that the SAS is made up of soldiers from different countries

Britain has it's own SAS branch (probably open to all of UK now). I'm pretty sure Australia has their own SAS group, unrelated to the UK. Canada has like three special forces groups, most elite being the JTF2.

Britian, Australia and NZ all have their branches of the SAS and I believe they do exchange tours from one to the other.

Originally posted by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi
As for the French Legion, it's called the French Foreign Legion for a reason: they are traditionally a mercenary fighting force.

Mercenary means they are being paid by another country to do their fighting and i don't think the FFL fits that bill. Sorry.

US Air Force Para-Rescue Jumpers.