Come on. Spetznaz can do breakfalls and come up and still put a round through a target's eye with a scoped rifle, arguably have the most intense training regimen of any spec ops unit, and they'll kill hostages to take the win (Moscow theater).
As to the real question of the thread now that I'm done with my silly tangent, I believe that a S.E.A.L. team would be the more likely of the two to be utilized in a hostage rescue or specific interdiction situation depending on the size of the opposing force. This is only going off the top of my head but IIRC Delta is used for special operations in which the Army already has some type of mission role in theater and Delta can further those current actions, where as S.E.A.L.s are more "independent" operators, pulled in for specific strikes. Their most recent highlighted stories of S.E.A.L. action were the killing of Bin Laden and two separate rescues of hostages from Somali pirates. Of course I've heard from a Delta operator that if you know about a Delta operation then they didn't do their job right =p
In general I see British SAS described as having the most intense training of any special operations group, followed by S.E.A.L.s. This is in terms of open discussion though.
I was looking more into this and apparently Delta is not even an official entity as far as the U.S. Government is concerned so there is a lot less info on the specifics of what they do. The only missions I saw in my perusing that were attributed to Delta don't go beyond the early nineties or so. Some people were speculating here and there that at times Delta operations are attributed to other groups. Saw a little tidbit from the book Inside Delta Force that "The Unit" was based on mentioning that part of training includes work on 100% marksmanship accuracy among some other ridiculous measures of combat. They are also pulled from every branch of the military.
Found out as well that Team 6 is actually comprised of selected operators from other S.E.A.L. teams who then receive additional specialized training.
Anyway, to cut all this short, after doing a bit more reading I would say that when it comes to who would be chosen for an operation it would simply depend on who's in theater and what resources are needed. Doesn't appear that one or the other is more "elite" than the other, especially as a Delta group could easily contain S.E.A.L.s and anyone in the unit would be expected to pull his own weight.
Originally posted by Mindset
..because they are too scared to fight.